


time, time is a fickle friend

by customrolex



Series: come home yesterday [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Gen, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:21:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/customrolex/pseuds/customrolex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All it takes is one shift of reality for everything to be different. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>'This is why you were chosen,' Doctor Erskine said. 'You are a good soldier. I've looked at your service record and it is one of strength. But your actions and words here are ones of compassion. You have not forgotten the importance of kindness, of empathy. You will not let being made stronger make you forget these things.'</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	time, time is a fickle friend

'I wanted to do this at the docks,' Bucky said as he closed the door to Steve's tiny apartment, the one Bucky sent money for as often as he could. Steve turned to him, already raising an eyebrow in question.

'And what's that—oof!'

Bucky grabbed Steve's threadbare jacket, slamming him against the rickety door. He collided their lips, and Steve's arms found their way around Bucky's neck, pulling him down further, like a famous dame, in some pictures climax. Bucky wrapped his own hands around Steve's hips, and Steve hopped obediently. Bucky lifted, amazed at how much easier wartime muscle made lifting Steve's slight frame.

With Steve's legs hooked over Bucky's hips, he pinned the younger man against the door. The hinges clanged as their weight shifted and Steve laughed against Bucky's lips.

'I have neighbours,' he chastised. Bucky bit Steve's jaw lightly; he didn't care about neighbours right now. He'd waited nearly an hour to kiss Steve since he'd landed in New York. He hadn't even put down his bag yet, a counterweight against Steve and making pinning him to the door a mild challenge Steve's slight frame did not provide. 'This is what you wanted to do at the docks?'

'It's been months,' Bucky pointed out, already hard against Steve, tenting his uniform. He'd been half-hard since the second he found out he'd gotten leave, it seemed, the three days from the front to England and the six days on the boat to New York. Steve was starting to harden as well, which made Bucky smile against his kisses on Steve's neck. Whenever Steve was even a little unwell, his weak heart couldn't spare the blood to express his interest, even if Bucky did everything to make Steve's body to show his interest the way his dirty mouth would.

'I've missed you,' Steve said. His breath whistled going in. It didn't whistle the way that made Bucky worry, just a normal, healthy whistle for a tiny asthmatic's chest. 'I've missed you so much. It's only been a few months but it seemed like years here without you.'

'I'm so glad I'm home,' Bucky said, and he kissed Steve again. 'God, I'm so God damned glad.'

'Me too, Bucky,' Steve gasped, his fingers going tight in Bucky's jacket as he pressed them together, rolling his hips. 'Fuck, Bucky, please. Not against the—properly, let me have you properly.'

'Yeah,' Bucky panted. He dropped Steve, shucking his bag and pushing his hat off. Steve grabbed at Bucky's uniform jacket and Bucky twisted his arms to let Steve yank it off. 'Stevie,' Bucky said, pulling himself against Steve again like he was the only warm shelter in a blizzard. 'You're perfect, you know that?'

'Don't beat your gums,' Steve grumbled, pulling Bucky towards the tiny bedroom tucked in the back of the apartment. Bucky removed the smaller man's tie and tried to work on his buttons. His hands were shaking. It had been so damn long.

'You are perfect,' Bucky repeated.

' _Lo, atah lo tzodek_ ,' Steve said. Bucky chuckled at the Hebrew denial. Steve kissed him to make him stop laughing.

'I'm serious,' Bucky insisted once Steve released him.

'No, you are wrong,' Steve repeated. He closed the bedroom door behind them, and pushed Bucky onto the thin bed.

'You're the best guy I could ever possibly have,' Bucky promised, 'and if I could, I'd propose on the spot, make honest men outta us.' Steve rolled his eyes to try to hide his blush.

'You're a sap, is what you are,' Steve said, and knelt between Bucky's spread knees. 'Honest men don't lift herbs from Mister Faucon's garden.'

'He's mean to the stray cats and you needed asthma cigarettes,' Bucky pointed out. Steve leaned down, brushing his nose over the button fly of Bucky's uniform. The pleats were rented obscenely and Bucky would take a picture of Steve like this if he could. 'Holy hell, Stevie,' Bucky murmured, at just the sight, and then his brain flickered off at the touch. Steve twisted Bucky's trousers open and pulled him out, reverent. 'Stevie, holy _hell_.'

'Honest men don't blaspheme,' Steve retorted. Steve's mouth was hot and wet and perfect, Bucky was right, and he tangled his hands in Steve's blond, thin hair. He resolutely did not push Steve's mouth down, but, fuck he wanted to. Steve bobbed on his own and Bucky let the sensations wash over him after months and weeks of missing them.

He came far too quickly, without much warning, when Steve's tongue swirled at the same time his thumb pressed up behind Bucky's balls. The sensation was perfect, and after months of only imagining, he was tossed right over the edge. It was too much. His vision whited out, and he was sure his hips jerked uncomfortably deep into Steve's mouth.

He fell back on the bed, eyes closed, and his tie was suddenly too tight. He pulled his hands out of Steve's hair—he was still lapping and kissing at Bucky, which was the gentlest, sincerest thing—and tugged his tie to loosen it. He tossed it off as Steve finally pulled away from him, just as sensitive started to verge on overly so.

'Bucky,' Steve whispered into his neck. He lay next to Bucky on the bed, tugging at Buck's shirt buttons and bare from the top up himself. Bucky could feel Steve's ribs against his arm. 'Bucky, I need—'

Bucky rolled over, his shirt open and his stomach pressing against Steve's hardness. Steve moaned, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. The walls were ridiculously thin. Bucky smiled and kissed Steve's neck again. Steve had never been good at keeping his mouth shut and sex was no exception. Bucky sat up a bit, stripped them both out of what remained of their clothes. Steve wiggled as Bucky tore his trousers and shorts off.

'Bucky, hurry up,' Steve said as tho Bucky was the one who had started the sex before they were both properly undressed. _Let me have you properly_ his ass.

' _Savlanut_!' Bucky snapped. 'Patience!' Steve laughed and reached up. Bucky lay in the circle of his arms obediently. Steve was the perfect size to be held like this. Bucky had gone with a few dames in his time, never further than petting, mind, and they never fit under his arms quite like Steve did. He could feel himself getting hard again, and he teased another moan out of Steve easily while he let his own body recover. He could taste himself in Steve's mouth and that drove him absolutely wild.

'Trying to charm me won't make me forget you're a goy, Bucky,' Steve pointed out, ever the wise guy. Jesus, when they'd first gone together, Bucky had had a crisis about how wrong it was for two men to love each other like they did. Steve had shook his head at him and said the only thing he regretted was that Bucky wasn't a nice Jewish boy for his mother to have approved of. Steve was the most ridiculous person Buck had ever met.

' _Ani yode'a milim achadot_ ,' Bucky bragged.

'Yeah,' Steve agreed, 'because Miss Miriam Schwarzman upstairs is sweet on you.'

'Why you gotta say another lady's name in bed, huh?' Bucky asked, fake pouting. 'I thought I was your best girl.' Steve smiled fondly and brushed his hand thru Bucky's hair. His fingers tangled in the light curls that appeared when it was hot and humid like today.

'You are, you schmuck,' Steve promised. 'Now I'm serious. You need to touch me or I'll explode.'

His lungs were whistling a little sharper, and his heart could only maintain an erection so long, so Bucky obliged. He had been promised at least a week off, so it wasn't as tho he wouldn't have time to wring a better declaration of love outta Stevie.

He was getting pretty good at it, too.

^^^

‘Wait here,’ the doctor ordered, leaving his affairs on the desk. Steve frowned, watching him as he followed the nurse to the curtain.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked. The doctor barely gave him a glance.

‘Just wait here,’ he repeated, flicking the curtain shut behind him. Steve swallowed nervously. He looked behind himself, at the sign warning against falsifying your papers. Steve wondered if he’d been caught. He was nearly old hat at trying to enlist; the doctor had never left like that before. Shit, he’d been caught. He hopped off the exam table, and sat in the chair next to the scale. He grabbed his boots, tugging one on. The curtain flicked open again.

He looked up at the military police. Shit, he really had been caught. So much for trying his luck. He was going to be arrested. What did they even do once you were arrested? He knew soldiers were court martialed, but he wasn’t a soldier, not yet. Would they just toss him in a regular cell down at the precinct? He’d had enough trouble finding work without a criminal record (he'd been arrested at a couple of rallies, but the cops had always let him off on pity more than anything else; Steve reckoned that wouldn't work here). Bucky was gonna kill him. He'd been summoned that morning, and left that afternoon. Gone for fewer than eight hours and Steve managed to get himself arrested. Another man came in, holding a file. Steve watched him nervously.

‘Thank you,’ he said, dismissing the soldier. He left, flicking the curtains closed again behind him. Steve stared at the man, feeling very small and caught, as he tucked his arms behind his back.

‘So,’ he said easily, taking the file out and opening it. Steve resolutely did not fidget. ‘You want to go overseas. Kill some Nazis.’ Steve frowned.

‘Excuse me?’ he said, confused.

‘Doctor Abraham Erskine,’ he said, reaching out a hand. Steve stood, aware how short he was even compared to this doctor. ‘I represent the Strategic Scientific Reserve.’ They shook hands.

'Steve Rogers,’ he offered. Doctor Erskine nodded, moving to the exam table. He flicked open his file, surveying it as he leant against two fists on the cheap padding atop the table. ‘Where are you from?’ Steve asked, curious. The man sounded a lot like Mrs Strub, who owned the bodega near his apartment with her son. They were from Austria, _the southern part_ , she’d warn when you asked. Steve didn’t know why the south or north mattered, but he supposed he certainly wasn’t from Jersey, either.

‘Queens,’ Doctor Erskine said. 'Seventy-third Street, Utopia Apartments. But, before that, Germany.’ Steve resisted the urge to grin. He used to get smacked by the nuns for answering questions like that, technically correct, but obviously not what they had meant. ‘This troubles you?’ the man asked. Steve shook his head.

‘No,’ he said sincerely. Doctor Erskine leaned his fists into the cheap exam table, perusing the file he’d flicked open there.

‘Where are you from, Mister Rogers?’ he asked as he ran a finger over the first page. ‘Hmm? Is it, New Haven?’ He flicked to the next page, Steve’s next attempt. ‘Or, Paramus? Five exams in five different cities—’

‘That might not be the right file,’ Steve tried, definitely caught.

‘It is not the exams I'm interested in,’ Doctor Erskine assured him. ‘It's the five tries. But you didn't answer my question.’ He shut Steve’s file, moving to stand in front of Steve, looking down over his glasses at him. ‘Do you want to kill Nazis?’ Steve glanced at the sign warning of fraud.

‘Is this a test?’ he asked. Doctor Erskine blinked at him.

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘I don't want to kill anyone,’ Steve admitted, after considering. Part of him wanted to say, _damn, of course_ , he could kill anybody an able-bodied fella could, but that was pride speaking, and Steve didn’t feel it with conviction. The God’s Honest Truth was that he was an American, and they were supposed to be the greatest country in the world. They were supposed to represent freedom, justice, _fairness_. Sure, lots of men wanted vengeance for Pearl Harbour, and Steve did too, but really, he was exactly the type of person armed thugs would kill if Kristallnacht had taken place in Red Hook. His ma had been the type of woman they woulda raped and shot in the back of the head. If he couldn’t defend himself, how could he ask anyone else to? How could he ask Bucky to give his life if he couldn’t do the same? ‘I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.’

‘Well,’ Doctor Erskine began, his tone impossible for Steve to decipher, ‘there are already so many big men fighting this war. Maybe what we need now is a little guy.’ Steve was sure he’d misheard. The man spoke quietly, with an accent, and there was ambient noise leaking everywhere from the fair outside. Steve’s hearing wasn’t so hot, so surely he misheard. Before he could echo or beg pardon, Doctor Erskine continued.

‘I can offer you a chance,’ Doctor Erskine said, pushing out of the exam room. Steve grabbed his coat, hurrying to follow. ‘Only a chance.’ He lifted a stamp, glancing at it.

‘I'll take it,’ Steve agreed, his jacket clutched in his thin hands.

‘Gut,’ Doctor Erskine said, still facing his paperwork. ‘So where is the little guy from? Actually.’

‘Brooklyn,’ Steve admitted. Doctor Erskine nodded, and Steve wondered if the strange look on the man’s face was in fact a hidden grin. Erskine slammed a stamp down, and passed Steve his file.

‘Congratulations,’ he said, ‘soldier.’

Steve looked as soon as Doctor Erskine had wandered off. He felt the last of the tension wrung from his body, only relief and excitement in its place. He was going to war. He was fighting back. He was joining Bucky.

1A.

^^^

'Private Rogers,' someone called. Steve stumbled to a halt, lungs whistling and his twisted spine aching. His trick knee felt watery and his hips had always been bad because of his back; running and crawling did them no favours. He could feel every muscle in his heart struggle sharply, and if he didn't know it was impossible, he'd say he could still feel the scars rheumatic fever had left there. He was exhausted, everything hurt, and he'd never been so pleased by it. He turned to the voice, and gave a polite nod, at Agent Carter.

'Ma’am,' he greeted, not saluting because he didn’t know if he was supposed to.

'Come with me,' she ordered, and he fell into step behind her. She was taller than him, like every person in the world, it seemed, and she looked strong. He liked her, and since he was the only recruit who hadn’t mouthed off to her yet, he was sure she at least didn’t hate him.

'Where are we going, ma’am?' he asked, hurrying alongside her. Her legs were longer, and even in heels in the camp gravel, her stride carried her faster than his did.

'Colonel Phillips wants to transfer you,' she told him.

'Transfer me?’ he echoed. ‘I thought Doctor Erskine wanted me here.’

‘He does,’ Agent Carter agreed. ‘Colonel Phillips doesn’t see it his way, that’s all.’ They finished the walk in silence. Steve held the door to the base office building for her, and she let him, not even rolling her eyes, or at least not vindictively. She gave him an almost-smirk, and shook her head as she entered the building ahead of him.

Colonel Phillips’ office was littered with files and maps and had three phones on the desk. Steve eyed the picture of his wife, framed on the bookshelf, no clutter surrounding it. It was odd to see Colonel Phillips beam like that, even if the woman beside him in the photo was beaming right back at him.

'For the record,' Agent Carter said, no preamble, 'I think Erskine is right with this one.' Steve looked up at her, wondering what Doctor Erskine had said about him.

'Skinny,' Colonel Phillips said brashly, ignoring Agent Carter. 'You think you fit in with this crowd?'

'Yes, sir,' he said, his spine as straight as it got with its bend.

'You’re a foot shorter than every other man I got,' Phillips pointed out.

'Only four inches. Greenland’s five eight, sir,' Steve said. Carter smirked at him and Phillips scowled.

'Look, kid,' Colonel Phillips said. 'I don’t have room for someone like you in this programme.'

'I can do it, sir,' Steve protested. 'I’ve been keeping up, and I’m the smallest guy here.'

'I don’t need guys who can keep up,' he snapped. 'I need guys who can excel. You’re too small for what I’m looking for. You're sickly and small.'

'I can do it, sir,' Steve repeated. He was tired of being an invalid. He’d been sick his whole life, dependent on his mother and then on Bucky, and for once, God, he wanted to be able to do it. He’d gotten into the Army with his scoliosis and asthma and his shitty heart, after all. He’d been keeping up with the other men, only a half-lap behind at worst, when he was sure he had less than half the lungs these fellas did.

'Look, kid, I don’t have a spot for you in this programme,’ he said. ‘It was hell setting it up, let alone jeopardising it with you.’

‘Private Rogers has more potential than you’re allowing,’ Agent Carter put in. 'Give him a few more days, and you'll see it yourself.'

‘You will, sir,' he agreed. 'I want to fight. I can do this.’ Steve sounded far more sure than he’d anticipated, and the certainty in his tone gave Phillips a second’s pause. Hope swelled in him, only to be crushed because he’d been seen as an invalid all his life; why should that change now?

'You won’t be fighting where I’m sending you,' Phillips said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced by the two people in his office. 'You’re the same size as a rifle that'd be asking you to carry, for crying out loud. I’m sending you to medic training. Your file—' He tugged it from atop a box on the desk, and Steve wondered if Doctor Erskine had removed the evidence that’d he’d forged four sets of enlistment papers before he'd gotten in. '—says your mother was a nurse, huh?'

'Yes, sir,' Steve agreed.

'So maybe you’ll prove to us you can be just as good at her job as she was,' Phillips offered. 'We need medics on the front. The Germans like to shoot the crosses like targets, so maybe the fact you’re small will be of some value there.'

'Yes, sir,' Steve said reflexively. 'But I could fight, like any other guy here—'

'You’re not gonna make it thru the things I’m gonna have these men doing,' Phillips said. 'It’d kill you. Least this way you got a chance of making it to war, kid. More than that, you got a chance of making it back home.' Steve nodded, vaguely disappointed. 'Go wash up, pack up. Agent Carter will take you to the med detachment.' Agent Carter shook her head, annoyed. Steve got the sense she wasn’t annoyed at him. He figured it was the first time a lady as beautiful as her hadn’t been annoyed with him for being small and in the way.

'If you'd give me a chance—' Steve tried, because he was nothing if not stubborn.

'Erskine gave you a chance, and I'm sending you out,' Phillips said. 'That's that, kid.'

'But, sir,' he tried.

'Dismissed.'

Steve turned, wandering back towards the barracks. He pushed out of the office building and squinted in the sunlight of Jersey. He hated Jersey. Everyone must’ve hated Jersey, or else someone mighta improved it already instead of letting it be so damn awful.

'Private Rogers,' Agent Carter called. He stopped, waiting for her to fall in beside him before continuing. 'For what it’s worth, I think you would have excelled here.'

'Thank you, ma’am,' he said. ‘I hope they choose the right guy.’

'You’ll excel in medic training,' Agent Carter promised. 'I’m sure. But you would have excelled here as well, Steve—Private—'

'Steve’s fine. Steve's good,' Steve promised. The shade of the barracks fell over them, turning her warm, brown hair into nearly-black curls, without the sun to light up the hints of red. Her victory red lips didn’t lose their red in the shade. They looked sharper, if anything. Just like with Bucky, he had the urge to draw her in every sort of lighting he could find. He wondered what that meant.

'I wish—I would have liked to have seen you selected,' she said. 'I have an inkling that you would’ve been a good man for it.'

'I’m not a good enough soldier, apparently,' Steve said. He shrugged, because it wasn’t ever good to let on if you were sore about stuff to people other than your best friend, and not to a dame like Agent Carter. 'It’s OK. I’m lucky to have gotten in at all, frankly. Least this way, I still might make it to the front.'

'Colonel Phillips hopes the doctors at the medical detachment will send you home on sight,' she confessed. 'He doesn’t believe in you like Doctor Erskine does.'

'And you agree with Doctor Erskine?' he asked. She hesitated and he risked a grin, mimicking, he hoped, the charming one Bucky would level at the nuns at the boys' home to get outta trouble, the one he levelled at pretty girls at the dance hall to make them dirty their hands to dance with a working class boy from Red Hook.

'I do, Steve,' she agreed, smiling back. She looked exasperated. She definitely saw thru the grin, but she found it endearingly fake at least. That was good. 'Colonel Phillips wants to choose Hodge.'

'Hodge is a bully,' Steve said, remembering the barbed wire of the obstacle course kicked down over his ears.

'And you’re the kind of man to lie across the wire, not kick it into another soldier’s face,' Agent Carter said angrily, and Steve started. He hadn’t realised anyone had even seen Hodge kick the wire down over him. ‘I’m hoping he’ll fill your spot with someone who might prove more suitable than Hodge.’

‘So do I, then, ma’am,’ Steve said. They stared at each other for a moment, and Steve felt his face start to heat up. He decided to end the conversation while it was going well. He hadn't put his foot in his mouth yet, but he was sure it was only a matter of time. 'I’m gonna pack. When do you want to take—’

‘An hour,’ she said. ‘I’m going to try to make him see reason. You’re the man for this, Steve.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but I get the feeling his mind’s made up.’

^^^

‘—absolute nonsense, is what it was!’ someone shouted. 'I won't be bringing him back. I'm filling his spot in the programme, at your damn insistence, and that's the end of it. You're dismissed, Carter.' Bucky turned away from the other sergeant he was hassling, like he’d be hassling Steve if they were at home, and was glad he did, because the booming voice belonged Colonel Phillips, who appeared at the door of the barracks. He leapt to attention, and the rest of the men in the barracks did the same a few seconds later. Colonel Phillips definitely noticed Buck had been first, and Bucky wondered if that was good, or meant he’d get another promotion more likely to get him killed before he could come home to Steve.

‘Gentlemen,’ Colonel Phillips called, walking up and down the line of men in the BOQ. ‘I’m here today on behalf of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. It’s come to my attention that our group of recruits is a man short. General Patton has said that wars are fought with weapons, but won by men. We are going to win this war, because we have the best men. And they’re only going to get better.’

‘Now, this programme comes with some risks, ones I can’t get into, but ones that are very serious,’ Phillips said. ‘But it might mean a chance to become a better man. I’m looking for a volunteer.’

Bucky felt the men around him shift, confused and a little put off. None of them had come to war to become good men; they’d come to be soldiers, to avenge Pearl Harbour, to fight for America. Bucky had gotten all the way up to sergeant not by trying to be a good soldier, not really, but by trying to be a man as good as Steve. Being a better man was right up Steve’s alley. He figured they would have picked Steve for this sort of thing, if there was ever a person to see past his sickly exterior to the heart underneath. If Steve's foolish forgeries ever got him into the army, he'd be the best man they'd get, right up until his heart gave out.

He stepped forward without thinking about it. He did a lot of things that way, it seemed.

‘Name?’ Phillips asked.

‘Sergeant James Barnes, one-oh-seventh,’ he said.

'One-oh-seventh was supposed to ship out over a week ago,' Colonel Phillips remarked.

'The ship was delayed, sir,' Bucky said. 'I'd like to volunteer.' Phillips eyed him, and Bucky held his posture, at attention and firm. After what seemed like an inordinate pause, Phillips nodded.

‘Good man,’ he said. ‘Pack up. There’s a truck at the gate. Agent Carter will drive you to Camp Lehigh.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said. Phillips swept out and the men relaxed. Bucky wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

^^^

‘Queen Carter could sit over here,’ Feldman said, watching Agent Carter’s stocking seams as she passed on the way to the officer’s table in the mess hall. He leered and someone whistled. She resolutely ignored them, because Bucky could see she was a classier lady and a better soldier than half these guys and their sweethearts back home combined.

‘She could sit right here,’ Lindgren agreed, patting his lap. The men hooted, and Bucky tossed a bit of hard, hard bread crust at him. It bounced off Lindgren’s forehead and landed on Feldmen’s tray. He shrilled a whistle, getting the idiot recruits to shut up. Bunch of green asshole privates, the lot of ‘em.

‘Hey! Knock it off, all of you,’ he snapped. ‘She’s your superior officer. You treat her as such.'

‘Last I checked, it was this man's army, not an international club for girls,’ Feldman drawled in that God-awful Wisconsin farmboy accent of his, tossing the bread back at Bucky. Bucky caught it, and dropped it into his empty bowl.

‘Last I checked, when she says jump, you idiots have to say how high,’ Bucky replied.

'We don't gotta listen to you, choirboy,' Hodge sneered and Bucky snorted. He swung his legs over the bench. His boots were perfectly shined and it showed against the sticky hardwood of the mess hall.

‘I outrank all of you,' Bucky told him easily. 'I'm a sergeant, so you actually do have to listen, Hodge. She’s an officer; give her some damn respect. Consider that an order.' He left the table and they were quiet behind him. Maybe they'd shape up. A battlefield wasn't the place for distraction, and they were letting Carter distract them. There were nurses and WACs up at the front, and any shenanigans wasn't much appreciated. They oughta learn that now.

He dropped his tray off with the kitchenhands, absently thanking the coloured cook who took his tray. He got a warm smile in reply. He could feel Agent Carter watching him, burning a hole in his back as he left, but for all his talk—talk that woulda made Steve proud—he had the urge to give her a grin and leer himself. She was a strong lady, and he was a lot like Steve in that way; he liked the idea a lady could beat him up if she wanted. Few things sexier than a woman who was almost a better shot than him, after all. When the war was over, if Steve ever realised what the fellas at the drag shows said they'd have to and they married dames and stayed apart, he could see either of them ending up with a woman like Agent Carter.

‘Sergeant Barnes,’ someone called as he pushed out of the mess hall. He held the door as he turned, that funny doctor who followed them around during training with that clipboard trailing after him. He didn't have his clipboard at the moment, just his hands in the pockets of his slightly-too-big coat.

‘Good evening,’ he said, because he didn’t remember the doc’s name.

‘Yes, hello, Sergeant Barnes,’ he said. He looked a little frazzled, but no more than usual. ‘Do you mind if we share a few words whilst you walk?’

‘No, sir,’ Bucky said easily. The doctor smiled, following him on his way thru the main field back to the barracks.

‘I am Doctor Erskine,’ the doc said kindly, ‘but you knew that.’

‘Yes,’ Bucky lied.

‘I think you have not been told much about what it is we plan to do,’ Doctor Erskine began, ‘but I think it is you who shows the most promise.’

‘I’m glad to hear that, sir,’ Bucky admitted. ‘I can’t say I’m not curious what you’re testing us for.’

‘Bah, they are testing for a strong soldier to make stronger,’ Erskine said huffily. ‘I am searching for qualities, beyond the physical.’

‘A good man,’ Bucky said, echoing what Colonel Phillips had said when he’d come into Bucky’s BOQ when he was supposed to ship back out to war.

‘Precisely,’ Doctor Erskine said. ‘Now. You are the highest rank among our options. Do you think this makes you a better choice?’

‘On paper, sure,’ Bucky said with a shrug. ‘But we’re all enlisted men, at the end of the day. I’m pretty good at what I do, that’s all. I've been a soldier nearly two years now. I understand how this works.'

‘And why did you volunteer for this programme?' Doctor Erskine demanded. 'The rest of these men were chosen at recruitment. Did Colonel Phillips tell you what we plan to do with the man we choose?’ Bucky shook his head. The evening sun had just dipped below the horizion and the night's chill was quick to follow its coattails.

‘No, sir, and when you say it like that, it makes me nervous,’ he admitted. 'He said you wanted to make good men better. I'd like to be a better man.'

'For example?' Erskine pressed.

'For example, with Agent Carter,' Bucky said. 'I tell the other boys to knock it off, because I'm an NCO, so it's my job to help keep 'em in line. But she's a beautiful dame and I can't help but notice. A better man might not. She didn't come here to be put on a pedestal or protected like a lady. She's here to fight, same as me. I oughta treat her the same, and it's hard. A better man might not find it so hard.'

'This is a good example,' Erskine agreed. 'Agent Carter has noticed your respect, by the way.'

'She outranks me,' he said stubbornly. 'Nothing else to it.'

'You have fought in Europe,' Erskine said.

‘North Africa, mostly,’ Bucky put in, and Doc nodded easily.

'Did you take pride in war, in the fighting?' Bucky frowned, his head jerking to look at Doctor Erskine. The man regarded him pacifically, and Bucky shook his head. Bucky wondered if this was a test. He figured it was.

'No, doc,' he said after a moment. 'I just spent my whole life trying to protect my best friend from bullies. At home, when I got drafted, I really didn't want to go and Stevie pointed out to me that the Nazis are just bullies with a bigger target, and after that, going to war didn't seem like such a sacrifice. It felt like my duty. Everybody deserves protection. I always finished his fights, so why not finish this one?' He shrugged. 'War isn't something to be enjoyed. It's not pretty and it's not about glory. It's about what's right, and it’s about not letting a hateful man win. These shellheads don't seem to get that.'

'Stevie?' Doctor Erskine echoed, his tone a bit odd. Bucky flushed. It was a diminutive pet name, sure; even Steve complained about it every now and again too. He said Stevie was name for a twelve year old boy or a fancy person's pet bird.

'Yeah, Steve Rogers,' Bucky agreed. 'My best friend from back home in Brooklyn. He's not in Brooklyn now, anyways; he's out in France, by now, I'd think.' Bucky considered, aware Doc's gaze was heavy on his profile. 'He finished basic training a month ago, a few weeks after I was pulled into this programme. You'da liked him, I think. He'd have gotten that flag down quicker than me. It took me a minute to figure it out; he would have had it down in nine seconds flat.'

'Steven Rogers,' Doctor Erskine repeated. 'Your best friend from back home.'

'Yes, sir,' Bucky said. Doctor Erskine have him a kind smile. 'We grew up together, Steve and I. He'd get real hot under the collar with any sort of injustice. He tried for years to get in when war broke out, went out as soon as we heard about Kristallnacht. I ain't never seen Stevie so upset. It really threw him, hearing about that.'

'A true travesty,' Doctor Erskine agreed.

'I think people here forget that the Nazis started their war in Germany first,' Bucky mused. 'Not to—I'm sure you know more about it than I do. You're from Germany; I'm just a shellhead.'

'No, please,' Doctor Erskine encouraged. 'Share your thoughts.'

'I mean, they killed a hundred people that night,' Bucky said. 'Arrested something thousands of others. Burned down buildings and smashed windows and vandalised shops. Those people mighta been Jewish, but they were still German, weren't they? It was an attack on the home front by the home front. People forget that, here.'

'I think you are correct, Sergeant Barnes,' Doctor Erskine said. 'After the first war, my people, they felt small. They felt weak.'

'And Hitler puts on a great show,' Bucky agreed. 'He made them feel strong. I get it. I mean, I'd like to think I wouldn't have done nothing about it, if I were German. I'd like to think I'd have resisted, like you did. But I get it.'

They walked in silence for a moment, before Bucky stopped outside the barracks. The doctors and international officers had the BOQ right filled up, so Bucky slept with the privates in the programme. They wore on him a little, but it also reminded him of his squad back at the front a little. It wasn't so bad.

'Enjoy your night, Sergeant Barnes,' Doctor Erskine said. 'Thank you for the walk.'

'Sleep well,' he said, as Doctor Erskine wandered off, humming to himself a vague, folksy tune. Bucky shook his head. What a strange man. Bucky liked him.

^^^

Steve busted out the door of the field hospital, dismissed from several days of duty and still shaking from adrenaline. The heavy door clanged shut behind him, barely audible against the sirens of an approaching ambulance and the distant sounds of the battle field. Steve turned away from it all, hurrying down the shadows between the field hospital and the field morgue. He bent as soon as he could, letting his wheeze be as loud as he dared on base.

The cough was dry and easy enough to suppress; he wasn't sick, just weak enough for asthma to get the better of him. It wasn't something catching, just a tight metal band around his ribs pulling him tight. Captain Douglas had assumed it was just exhaustion from being a medic on the front; Steve had been given thirty six hours to sort himself out.

He hugged the wall of the field hospital, pulling an asthma cigarette out of the empty tobacco ration box he’d nicked from the floor of a jeep. He wasted a fireproof match to light it, pulling as hard as he could when he could move this little air.

It lit, and stayed lit as he coughed smoke. He stifled himself best he could, and it wasn’t long before the bands of his lungs began to ease, and he felt the smoke ease his mind too, the funny from the herbs making the exhaustion a little more bearable. Asthma cigarettes made his head swim just a little, and he felt blessed to have them pretty regularly here at the front.

‘Rogers?’ a familiar voice called. Steve straightened from his slouch against the wall, hiding the red ember in the curl of his palm. It was Corporal Lewis who half-jogged up to him, and Steve relaxed, shoving his cigarette back between his lips.  ‘Hey, pal, y’all right?’

‘’M fine,’ Steve snapped, and Lewis nodded, raising a hand in surrender. ‘You back for the night?’ Steve asked, because he had no reason to snap at Lewis.

‘Rough night, huh?’ Lewis said, sympathetic. Steve bristled under the sympathy, and Lewis looked away so Steve could hide his bristle. ‘Did you lose somebody?’

‘I’m not a doctor, Lewis, I don’t really have any patients,’ Steve said, because he was just a medic, so he handed sutures and reduction and field work, and occasionally relieved the surgeons’ nurses because he’d always been good at playing nurse for the poorer people in their building with his ma back in Brooklyn. Tonight, he’d been in surgery, helping dig shrapnel out of shredded muscle and sawing thru shattered bone. ‘Yeah, it was a rough night. _Damnit_ , Lewis.’ Steve braced his hands on his knees as his lungs tightened sharply. All at once, he hated it.

He hated the war. He missed Bucky. He missed Brooklyn. He’d wanted to come and fight evil, but he’d not quite realised the amount of blood he’d bathe in everyday as a medic. He hadn’t accounted for seeing hundreds of young men blown and shot and broken and battered to bits rushed thru the hospitals, hauled in thru the mud at the front. He wanted home. Most days, he was small and quick with an artist’s steady hands; he was a good medic and he enjoyed doing his duty. Today, he could smell only blood and vomit and no part of it felt like the good fight.

‘Rogers, take it easy,’ Lewis said, a big hand on his back.

‘I’m covered in blood,’ Steve gasped. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘Ah, Jesus,’ Lewis cursed, snatching his hand back, and Steve wondered if there was actually enough blood soaked into his clothes to leave his back as tacky as it felt, or if the tack was just drying sweat. ‘Rogers, _Christ_.’

‘I’m not fine,’ Steve admitted, straightening. If Lewis’s face was anything to go by, he felt the same way. ‘I never thought I’d ever see this much death.’

‘It’s just a hard day,’ Lewis said sagely. ‘I miss my wife too.’

‘I’m not married,’ Steve said. He pulled hard on his cigarette, and looked forward to scrubbing himself free of red under the cold water spray near the medic barracks. ‘Who’d marry all this?’

‘Nah, but you got somebody,’ Lewis said. ‘I seen you get letters. It’s a hard day and we ain’t got letters in a while. Clean up, sleep, get your head on, kid. It’s just hard.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve agreed. ‘Thanks, Lewis. Abyssinia.’

‘Sleep,’ Lewis repeated, leaving Steve in the alley. Steve finished his cigarette and stomped it out. The building he’d been leaning against had been a school, before its classrooms were filled with blood and guts and body bags.

It was just a hard day, he reminded himself. Most days, he could handle this. Most days, Steve ran the front with his medpacks and hauled back wounded or sewed them up on site. Most days, Steve worked hard and slept well. Most days, he didn’t hold someone down while their mangled hand was cut off and they screamed loud enough for the glass panel of the schoolroom-turned-makeshift-operating room to rattle. Most days, they saved more men than they lost.

Most days were easier than this.

^^^

'Can't sleep?' Doctor Erskine asked. Bucky looked down at his letter reflexively.

'Writing to a sweetheart, actually,' Bucky admitted. He hadn't been getting too many letters from Steve, not since he shipped out. He'd been sending sketches, of European towns and villages, of forests and the sea of wounded at the field hospital and Bucky _missed_ Steve, damn. 

'One must always make time for love,' Doc agreed. 'May I interrupt?' He placed two glasses on the footlocker at the end of Buck's bed.

'Of course,' Bucky said, moving the letter, balanced on a book, to his bedside table. Doc flipped down a mattress, and sat heavily on the springs. 'You having trouble sleeping? Got the jitters?'

'I suppose I do,' Doctor Erskine agreed. 'Tomorrow will be a big day for you. Are you nervous? Do you have any questions?' Bucky shrugged, linking his fingers together and balancing his arms on his knees.

'Why'd you pick me?' Bucky asked. 'I missed the whole first week of training, but you picked me anyway.'

'I suppose this is the only question that matters,' Doc said. He looked at the bottle balanced on his knee, and tilted it so Bucky could see the label. 'This is from Ausberg,' Doctor Erskine said, 'my city.'

Bucky could read the German label from his seat, the indications of a small, local distillery and the Obstler made of pears. He smiled.

'You were right,' Doc mused, 'when you said that the first country the Nazis attacked was their own. Hitler took my people over in the same way he had hoped to take the whole world. It is why I left Germany.

'Hitler knew of me,' he explained, 'or knew of my work. The serum, and what I hoped it could do. He came to me to help him make Germany strong. I am not interested.' The bottle found its way to the ground, so Doc could gesture and explain. Bucky listened intently, not only pleased to hear the story of Doctor Erskine, but because knowledge was power and no one else in the programme had even mentioned the actual war front in detail in so long. 'So he sends Johann Schmidt, the head of his science division, called HYDRA. Schmidt shares Hitler's passion for the occult, Teutonic myth and magic. Hitler uses it to feed his fantasy, but for Schmidt? It is not fantasy. He truly believes not only in the myth, but that he can harness the powers of the gods.

'When he learns of my serum, he cannot resist,' Doc continued. 'He must have it. I tried to refuse him, but he took it, and he burned.

'You see, the serum was not ready,' he said. 'But more importantly, the man. The serum does more than make stronger, faster; the serum makes everything about that man more. Good, becomes great. Bad? Becomes worse.

'This is why you were chosen,' Doctor Erskine said. 'You are a good soldier. I've looked at your service record and it is one of strength. But your actions and words here are ones of compassion. You have not forgotten the importance of kindness, of empathy. You will not let being made stronger make you forget these things.'

'I hope not,' Bucky said by way of thanks. Doc nodded and gestured. Bucky passed him his glasses. ‘Don’t they just want an army of super soldiers?’ Bucky asked. ‘I’m basically a human weapon. They could manufacture me, men like what I'll be, if this works.’

‘It will take months to recreate a new serum,’ Doctor Erskine offered. ‘It has to be tailored to each soldier’s genetic code, which I am thinking perhaps the politicians do not understand. This cannot be to make a whole army, just leaders. But I thought I would have more control over who was selected; I thought I could control who is remade perhaps a bit more.’

‘Not happy with the choice?’ Bucky joked, half-serious and suddenly nervous at how solemn Doc had become in a moment.

‘I believe in you, Sergeant Barnes,’ Erskine promised. ‘But I almost did not win your selection. I had someone else in mind, so the Colonel had him removed.’

‘That kid everyone said I replaced,’ Bucky agreed.

‘I had thought for a moment I would lose my serum to someone I had no faith in,’ Erskine said. ‘Imagine my relief to have been able to choose you.’ Erskine looked directly at Bucky, then, sincere and solemn and it wrenched Bucky’s heart.

'Whatever happens tomorrow,' Erskine said, reaching down for his glasses and schnapps, 'promise me you will remain who you are. Perhaps not a perfect soldier, but a good man.' He passed Bucky a glass and Bucky smiled at the sharp, sweet smell of the drink. He toasted, trying to think of what to say.

'To tomorrow,' he said.

'Let it not erase today,' Doctor Erskine agreed. Their glasses clinked and Erskine flailed, reaching forward and snatching Bucky's. 'What I am doing?' he muttered. 'You have procedure tomorrow. No fluids.' Bucky snorted. He rubbed his face, the five o'clock shadow sharp on his palm.

'Alright,' he said. 'Hey, we'll drink it tomorrow.'

'Tomorrow?' Doc echoed. 'Tomorrow? I don't have procedure in the morning. Drink it tomorrow; I drink it now.' He poured Bucky's share into his glass and Buck laughed.

He had been nervous. He wasn't so much, now.

^^^

‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’ Bucky asked. Peggy looked up at him, a small scrape on her cheek from where he’d tackled her to the ground, which had been covered in shattered and powdered glass. She hadn’t appreciated the protective gesture, but Bucky hadn’t had time to apologise for it. She seemed to have bigger fish to fry right now, so he didn’t know if it’d ever happen. He figured if he’d tackled a fella, he wouldn’t have felt the need to apologise for it, so maybe he oughtn’t apologise just because she was a dame. She shot exactly like a man in her position would have, so maybe he oughta treat her no different than he’d treat that man. She was kneeling beside the body, the only one who hadn’t commented on the shattered vial and the loss of the serum’s formula, but on the already-healed bullet graze and Bucky’s apparent ability to run as fast as a car and leap eight foot fences.

‘This man? Yes,’ she said evasively, looking back down at the corpse. Bucky sighed. She heard him, if her tense shoulders were any indication. ‘Yes,’ she added. ‘Doctor Erskine has been killed.’ Bucky nodded, and he let himself regret that wholeheartedly for a moment, before it had to be pushed down, to raw, to do something that mattered. He couldn’t sit around crying about it; he had to figure out why this had happened at all.

‘How did this guy get in?’ Bucky asked. ‘I thought the place was secure.’

‘It looks like he accompanied Senator Brandt to the procedure,’ she admitted, and stood, placing something into a kerchief in her palm. She bit the middle finger of her right hand’s leather glove and pulled her hand free as she held the kerchief to Bucky.

He took it gently, to allow her to peel off her gloves more easily. She thanked him absently, tucking the gloves neatly into her uniform’s cinching belt. Bucky did not eye her waist. She did not give him a small glance for doing it.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, pulling the kerchief’s corner back carefully to look at the item. It was a lighter. Peggy took it from him, wrapping it and placing it into a pouch on her belt. ‘’S a lighter, Agent Carter.’

‘I think it was the trigger for the bomb,’ Peggy said. Bucky shook his head, turning away. ‘I’ve seen the trick before; I’m not wrong—’ Peggy began.

‘No, no, I believe you’re right,’ Bucky said. ‘I just.’ He stared out over the docks, where he’d worked once and gotten fired from pretty promptly. A couple of workers across the way were rubbernecking the MPs wandering around, the body that was only now being covered with a sheet. Bucky wondered if someone would crane the sub out for the scientists to look at. Erskine was already dead; would they bother getting justice for a scientist who hadn’t exactly produced an army.

‘What is it, Sergeant?’ she asked. She sounded soft, like he was the dame who had to be handled with kid gloves when upset. He ignored the twinge of his pride telling him he was a man, and was just honest with her. He was too tired for anything else.

‘It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,’ he said. She gave him a sad smile and he sent one back.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No, it was not.’

‘They’re going to stick me in a lab, aren’t they?’ Bucky asked. Peggy shook her head.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. Other officers had arrived to begin hauling away the body, so they began their walk to the official cars that would return them to base in Jersey. ‘They’ll probably see it as a waste of funding if we can’t recreate the serum from your genetic code, or your blood perhaps.’

‘They’ll see it?’ Bucky questioned. They’d been directed to a waiting SSR vehicle, and Bucky opened the door for Peggy by habit. She stood, uncomfortably close but with the open door as a buffer, just short enough for her eyes to be level with his lips. He raised a brow in the close quarters, challenging.

‘You forget I participated in the selection process as well,’ she said. ‘I chose you for a reason.’

‘You don’t see me as a waste?’ he asked, before he could help himself. The pause was heavy, and Peggy only answered as she turned to get into the waiting Ford.

‘If you get stuck in a lab, it will be.’

^^^

‘Private Rogers?’ someone called, pulling him out of his letter, such as it was. Steve turned from his half-managed introduction, and leapt to his feet with who he saw. His chair banged against the fella’s behind him, crowded on a patio in the rare sun. The guy didn’t even bother to grumble, so Steve mumbled his apology. He yanked his hat off.

‘Agent Carter,’ Steve said. He awkwardly waved a hand at the vacant chair at his table, and she smirked at him as she sat. He felt odd not pulling the chair out for her, but he imagined she wouldn't appreciate that display of chivalry. Peggy looked like a dream, her dark uniform and Victory Red lips and the rosewater scent that followed her everywhere. He smoothed his own uniform as he sat. She scooped up his notebook and he panicked slightly. ‘Oh, I was just—’

‘Writing to someone?’ she asked. She eyed his chickenscratch and the sketch at the bottom of the page. It was of Bucky, of course it was, and he looked as lovely as Steve remembered. Even in a rough sketch after months apart, Steve was pretty confident he’d gotten that annoying grin down pretty accurately. He’d probably end up sketching this little French street and sending that in lieu of a letter to Bucky. He managed only drawings often enough; Bucky must have one hell of a collection by now. ‘You know Sergeant Barnes?

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he agreed, as she passed his book back to him. She frowned at him for his formality, but she was really quite beautiful so it was formality or sticking his foot in his mouth. ‘We grew up together. Our fathers' fought together and he had fought in the one-oh-seventh until a few months before I was assigned to it.’

‘He’s stateside now, I believe,’ Peggy offered. ‘He replaced you in Project Rebirth, not that you know anything about the programme, of course.’ Steve blinked at her. He’d assumed Hodge had been picked, and since there hadn’t been a huge trickle of whispers of genetic engineering success filtering thru the bases, he’d also assumed it hadn’t worked or yet been finished.

‘Yeah,' he agreed to humour her. 'Never heard of it. Bucky never said why he didn’t ship out. Is he all right? Have you tried it? Did it work?’ Peggy smiled kindly and Steve’s pen instinctually drew the smile before it faded from his mind's eye.

‘It’s confidential,’ she admitted. ‘But I can assure you he’s alive and well.’

‘Doctor Erskine must be proud,’ Steve said, ‘to have gotten someone like Bucky.’

‘Doctor Erskine is dead,’ Peggy said, and Steve felt like he’d been punched, with surprising force. It must've showed on his face, because Peggy looked sympathetic. ‘I’m sorry. I know he had faith in you when no one else did—’

‘You did,’ Steve said reflexively. ‘What happened?’

‘He was killed,’ Peggy said simply. ‘I can’t say much more than that.’

‘Did you get the guy who did it?’ Steve asked. She hesitated.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ she agreed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘’S not your fault,’ he said. ‘At least he succeeded once, with Bucky. If it could’ve been anyone, Bucky is a good choice. He always pulled me outta trouble.’

 

‘What sort of trouble, Steve?’ Peggy asked with a smile.

‘I used to get beat up in alleys a lot,’ Steve admitted, flushing. ‘Parking lots.’

‘Why?’ Peggy asked.

‘I have a big mouth,’ Steve said. ‘And I don’t like bullies.’

Peggy smiled at him, and a waiter appeared at their table.

‘Shall I order us lunch, Steve?’ Peggy asked with a wolfish grin. Steve swallowed. She was going to eat him alive. He nodded. She ordered in fluent French. He sketched out the curve of her jaw, her cheekbones, and she glowed in the sun.

^^^

‘I’m looking to find Agent Carter,’ Bucky said. ‘I heard she’s back from Europe.’ The man looked up at him, still with his head glued to his phone. His desk was the closest in the bullpen to the entrance, and Bucky didn’t know where else to go. He’d known Peggy worked in this office of the SSR, but he’d known not much more than that. The man blinked at him a few times, then pointed the lead of his pencil to Bucky’s left.

‘Try the office,’ he said. Bucky thanked him absently, and wandered into the office. A man out of SSR uniform stood there, facing away from Bucky, with his fists balanced on the table inside. The enormous desk was covered in papers and maps, and the man didn’t notice Bucky until Bucky cleared his throat. He turned. Bucky recognised Mr Stark, and he smiled as Stark shook his hand hello.

‘Hello, Sergeant Barnes,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again. The change is permanent, huh?’ Bucky shrugged.

‘So far,’ he agreed. ‘Listen, I’m looking for Agent Carter. I was told to look here.’ Stark nodded, a strange look on his face.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, OK. Close the door.’ Bucky did. Stark rounded the desk, sitting in the big chair on the far side, and motioning to the wooden one by the wall. Bucky sat, still a little awkward with his few extra inches. He sat a little too sharply, but Stark didn’t comment, just hauled his feet up onto the desk corner, and smoothed his tie.

‘I’m really just hoping to speak with Agent Carter, Mr Stark,’ Bucky said when the silence went a moment too long.

‘How come you never call her Miss Carter?’ Stark asked. Bucky blinked at him, but Stark just grinned sharkishly at him.

‘She’s an agent,’ Bucky said, unsure of how he was meant to explain someone else’s name. ‘I was introduced to an Agent Carter, not a Miss Carter.’

Stark opened his mouth to retort just as the door opened. Bucky stood as Peggy came in, holding an enormous tower of files like nothing and glaring at Mr Stark.

‘Howard, get your feet off my desk,’ she ordered, and he swept himself out from behind her desk without hesitation, grabbing a set of schematics and wandering right out. He closed the door behind him. Bucky stared at Peggy, who hadn’t really glanced at him as she settled her files down.

‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said, and he sat as she lifted her phone. She spoke to the switchboard, and then for a few minutes in French while Bucky stared unabashedly. Her hair was pulled up and back into a chignon and he liked it on her. She certainly noticed his staring, but she didn’t glare or look away, just held his gaze for a moment before looking back down to make a few notes, sounding even more professional in French. He wondered if she spoke other languages. To be a dame in any sort of authoritative position in the SSR during a war involving almost every language you could think of, she’d have to be, he reckoned.

‘Pardon me,’ she said again as she hung up. ‘Sergeant Barnes. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m hoping you can do anything,’ he said. She raised a brow and he continued. ‘Colonel Phillips has refused to reassign me to active duty, wants me to be kept safe and in a lab. Senator Brandt has offered me a publicity tour for a commission if I’m willing to wear an embarrassing pair of shorts and tights.’

‘What does this have to do with me?’ Peggy asked. Bucky swallowed nervously, because there was a fine chance that she couldn’t do anything at all for him. Hell, there was a fine chance she wouldn’t.

‘You chose me for more than this,’ Bucky reminded her. She looked down sharply, and he plowed on, softening his tone. He was asking a lot; he realised this. ‘Doctor Erskine chose me for more than this,’ he added to further soften his point. ‘I understand you aren’t technically military, but I was hoping you could give me something. Anything. I don’t want to waste this.’ She nodded slowly, really considering. ‘They want me to be called _Captain America_ , for Christ's sake,’ he begged her. ‘They’ve got a little comic book drawn up and everything, like I'm Buck Rogers or something; it's awful, Peggy. It’s that or be a lab rat for Philips, and I just spent the last three weeks in a lab establishing my limits. I don’t know how much of that experiment-environment I could take. I know you know those cannot be my only two options.’

‘I can always use good men,’ she said easily. ‘I doubt I could get you active duty, just intelligence analysis, no field work, but it’s something. I’m afraid you’re now limited thru the virtue of representing a financial investment.’ Bucky nodded, considering. He didn’t know if he had any aptitude for intelligence work; he’d never done anything of the sort. He’d worked his way up from drafted grunt to sergeant, but that wasn’t anything like what Peggy did, Bucky was sure.

‘It sounds better than nothing, ma’am,’ he said, and she stood, extending a hand to seal the deal. He stood. Her hand was soft; he shook it solemnly. ‘Thank you. I’m sure getting me something to do means sticking your neck out, so thanks.’

‘I meant it when I said you were chosen for a reason,’ Peggy promised. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for an opportunity for you to prove it. Otherwise, I’ll see you at oh-seven-hundred, tomorrow.’ He nodded, and put his hand on the knob before turning. Peggy had sat, but met his eye when she realised he had a question.

‘All your men are wearing suits,’ Bucky said. ‘All I’ve got’s the uniform.’

‘You don’t own a single suit?’ Peggy asked. She sounded amused. He bristled.

‘I’ve been a soldier for two years,’ Bucky said. ‘And with Steve at war, too, there wasn’t anybody paying rent on our place. Whatever I had is gone now.’ Peggy sobered, and he gave her his dance hall grin to mellow the mood.

‘The uniform’s fine, Sergeant,’ she said. She pulled a folder off the top of her pile, returning to the breakneck pace of the bullpen she apparently ran. ‘Oh-seven-hundred. Dismissed.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, and pulled the door shut behind him.

^^^

‘Agent Carter,’ Bucky said, and Peggy looked over at him where she stood with a junior agent, making decisions about newfound intelligence. She dismissed the younger man and he shut her office door behind him.

‘What do you need, Bucky?’ she asked, familiar like she always was in private. He carried over the map he had folded in his hand, and he shook it out.

‘I was looking at your maps, and I’ve noticed some weaknesses for us to exploit,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she asked. Peggy leaned her hip against the sturdy table in her office, which was less covered in maps and battle plans than usual. Bucky unfolded his map, and she leaned over it, her dark eyes eagerly following his red-penciled notes.

‘Some of the territory is sketchy,’ Bucky admitted. ‘Well fortified and difficult terrain besides. I just know I’d be able to do it with the right men.’

Peggy stared at his map, his notes he’d scribbled in the map’s margins, and he handed her the extra notes he’d typed up. He’d spent a few weeks on this, making sure his command theory was sound, because she’d managed to get him something resembling a real job, and if he did a good enough job proving he was too valuable to have stuck in an intelligence office, then maybe she’d stick her neck out again.

‘Show me,’ she said, finally, closing the small packet of notes. He leant over the map, talking his way thru the plan. The Nazi's science division facilities were practically impenetrable, certainly if the Army meant to use a large number of soldiers to take one. Bucky had been in the trenches, and he knew how impossible it would be to get a large fighting force past the front lines and towards any real target that would slow the Axis Powers down.

A small, covert ops group, perhaps one led by a super soldier, for example, could make it the few dozen miles, and they might be able to take a base if intelligence could get them even one person with any idea of how the interior of the bases were laid out. It all came down the the layout; the right crew could handle the base’s defenses no problem but the right crew also needed to know the exits, and the places to put demo packs.

‘Bucky, this is good work,’ she admitted.

‘Well, Peggy, I wouldn’t bring it to you if it wasn’t,’ he said simply, because this wasn’t about praise, it was about ending this God damn war. People were dying, and things were getting worse. Bucky wasn’t willing to let this go on, not when he’d signed up for an experiment he’d been told would make him a better man. Better men did not sit on the sidelines. Better men weren't so damn _useless_. ‘I want to do more than sit here, and I know you’ve already used about as much of your pull as you have, but—’ Peggy placed his notes down, beside his map, which seemed oddly final to him.

‘I’m going to the front,’ Peggy told him, and Bucky frowned. ‘Some new intelligence has come in. I’m getting on a boat tomorrow.’

‘What does that mean?’ Bucky asked.

‘Another agent will supervise the shut of this office,’ she said. ‘There’s no one immediately available to supervise, so it’ll be dissolved into various other SSR departments.’ Bucky turned away from his map, pacing slightly in Peggy’s office. She sighed, looking ravishing as always. Bucky kind of hated her for that. He liked her, and he hadn’t gotten a letter or even a sketch from Steve in weeks. It was hard to know Steve was out at the front, while Bucky was safe stateside, which was the opposite of everything Bucky had ever wanted.

‘Will I be kept in intelligence?’ he asked. She didn’t answer but crossed her arms and looked down. That was answer enough. ‘I’ll be Phillips, or Brandt’s, if you can’t stake a claim.’ He shook his head. ‘ _Jesus_. Two and a half years and a genetic overhaul. For the duration, my ass.’ Some people had argued that draft enlistment should be for only two years, not the duration of the war, and Bucky was beginning to see their point. He didn’t have any ability to get himself out of this. He was stuck, and he’d signed away more rights than the average enlisted man as the supersoldier investment he was. They said _jump_ , and he said _how high_?

‘I’ve arranged to take my second-in-command with me,’ Peggy said. ‘I didn’t specify who it was. It’s yours if you want it, but it means playing my secretary at the front. If you don’t—’

‘What time tomorrow?’ Bucky asked. ‘It’s the front, Peggy,’ he said when she looked surprised. ‘It’s the war. It’s a chance to actually get to do something. Besides, I’d be honored to be your second.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said frankly. ‘Most of the men here despise that I’m the one who gives the orders, and you’re willing to play secretary from a tent in the mud in Europe.’

‘A CO’s a CO,’ Bucky said blithely. ‘I’m just thankful to have a good one.’ She smiled at him, and he missed home. At home, he’d give a crooked grin, dance with her all night, and tell Stevie stories of their future, when Steve’s found a great dame to drag him away from Bucky and into normalcy. Steve would laugh at the stories until he coughed, and he’d promise that they’d figure out, somehow, how to be together and have it all. Bucky reminded him that it was impossible and Steve would always shrug him off, foolishly optimistic. Peggy was someone he could see himself marrying, keeping safe and warm in the evenings, with Steve’s kids next door.

^^^

The ambush left Steve bloody. He couldn't see out of his left eye, and the impact from an artillery blast had left him dizzy and dazed with ringing ears. He was alive; most of the one-oh-seventh was alive, loaded into the German trucks by the dozen, headed God only knew where. The fact they were loaded like livestock rather than shot dead in their uniforms was more terrifying than the ambush itself had been. The inside of the truck was nearly pitch black. He could hear the concerned tone of voices around him, but he couldn't understand them past the fog in his mind and the ringing in his ears. He couldn't see in the dark, not out of his one working eye, but when a big hand clapped the ungashed side of his face, he mumbled, 'I'm fine, 'm all right,' until they withdrew. 

 

It was probably a lie. He had one hell of a head wound and he couldn't remember if he'd lost consciousness or for how long. He couldn't remember much of anything past the artillery that had blown to his left, far too close to the field hospital for his comfort. He wondered how long it would be until the shrapnel wound in his side cost him his lifeblood. He couldn't remember if the field hospital had been evacuated, or if the wounded men had been put down like rumours said the Germans did. Steve hoped to God the rumours weren't true, but then, he was a medic, a wounded medic, who'd been captured and shackled and loaded into the truck with the infantrymen. 

 

The trucks eventually stopped outside a factory that was probably still in Italy. They'd driven for a few hours at a speed impossible to judge without any light and the clanking of the truck bed never changing in frequency or pitch to Steve's shitty ears, which could mean they were fifty miles at a slow speed thru rough terrain or far faster on a proper road. They would be tugged out of the trucks one load of men at a time. Soldiers opened the doors to their truck as the men in the truck beside them began climbing out.

'Stay,' a soldier ordered them, motioning with a strange blue gun. He and his partner stayed in front of their truck, guns loose in their steady hands.

'Sarge, they're taking our names and numbers,' Ferguson said, off to Steve's right. The ringing had almost stopped. Steve wished he knew how long it had been, how long he'd been bleeding unchecked. 'What do we do?' Steve turned, following Ferg's gaze. A pudgy little man wandered up the line of new POWs as unarmed, masked guards tugged out dog tags and read them off. He wore a lab coat, and a taller man in a lab coat followed behind him with a clipboard, taking the names and numbers. Steve could see the LT standing at ease and accepting this registration.

'We do nothing,' Lewis decided from beside Steve. 'They're allowed to take our names and numbers, and there's too many armed men. I think we're stuck.' They watched the other men be identified and lead off. Steve wondered what they'd be doing here. It was a factory, but what kind? Prisoners were supposed to be treated well, but an enemy officer had evaporated a captured man already with those evil blue guns. Steve remembered Skiffington exploding into blue sparks clear as day. They were not going to be treated right here, not a chance.

'This one is very nice,' the little man said in German, stopping in front of one of the other sergeants, who glared down at him. 'Good posture. It looks like he has very strong shoulders,' he mused, and Steve didn't understand the rest. In English, he asked, 'What is your name?'

'Patterson,' the sergeant said.

'Hm,' the little man hummed. 'I'll have him.' Two guards pushed Patterson's back with their guns. He stumbled forward, his shackled palms raising instinctually. 'Bring him to laboratory three. Strap him down.' The guards grabbed him roughly and began dragging him off.

'Shit,' Lewis said quietly. 'What did the little guy say?'

'They're bringing him to a lab,' Steve said. His German wasn't very good—Bucky had done German in school while Steve had taken French to please his mother—but he mostly understood the little man's deliberate way of talking. 'I have a feeling sticking with the labour side of this will have a better chance of getting us out alive.' The guards beckoned them out. Lewis climbed out first, hoisting Steve down, because he was injured or because he was tiny and Lewis was his friend, he didn't know. Lewis tried to help his men out, awkward with the chains around his wrists.

The little man waved off the last few men in the group before them, who were taken en masse to a different gate than the one Patterson had disappeared thru. A soldier yanked Lewis's tag out, reading his name, rank and number to the man with a clipboard. He called out _Evangelische_ and Steve's heart skipped a beat. His tags said his religion too, with two crooked _H_ s stabbed in the corners of his tags. He was definitely going to die now, even beyond the slim chance he had of surviving a POW camp wounded as he was.

 

Steve was never going to go home. He was never going to see Bucky again. Bucky hadn't written back in months, and now Steve was never going to get those late or lost letters. He was never going to see Bucky again; he'd never get to say _I love you_ , or _goodbye_. They were going to blow him up like they'd blown up Skiffington, with their blue weapons. He straightened his spine as much he could. He was going to die on his feet at least. He was gonna die like a man. He was always going to die young, so he supposed he may as well go out swinging instead of sick. The men at enlistment had encouraged him to leave the _H_ off his tags and he'd refused. He'd thought he'd rather lose out doing something right, than be safe doing something to protect himself despite the fact it wasn't the right thing to do. 

 

He'd thought he'd rather. In the moment, he was just scared. 

'You look well, Sergeant,' the man told Lewis. Lewis glared.

'Who the hell are you?' Lewis demanded. 'What is this place?' The man smiled, smug like a snake.

'I am Doctor Zola,' he replied. 'You, on the other hand, are a prisoner of Johann Schmidt, and I am in charge here when he is gone. You look strong.'

'I am,' Lewis agreed, 'and I'll bash your fuckin' head in if you touch any of my men.'

'I would have you shot,' the little man said easily. 'And we take at least one sample from every truck. Is this little one yours?' He gestured at Steve, who was sure he was still too pale and looking only a little unsteady on his feet. Mostly his head had stopped bleeding, flecks of dried blood not completely wiped away by the rags in his packs. 'He seems to be the only medic to have survived our ambush. Medics don't generally serve under soldiers.' Doctor Zola gave Lewis such a blithe fucking look and Steve hated him a little. He didn't like hating people, but something about this slimy man deserved it. 

'He's with me,' Lewis practically growled. Steve didn't protest, and none of his men said anything either, listening fearfully. The air was thick with tension. They remembered too vividly Skiffington's explosive end. This Zola character might be unarmed, but the three dozen German soldiers in the immediate area sure as hell weren't.

'Such a little boy to be in such a big war,' Zola said quietly, in German, and mostly to himself. 'Take his name,' he ordered.

A soldier tugged Steve's chain out and Steve saw it, the _H_ pressed in the corner of each his tags. The soldier saw it just as easily and dropped the tags like they'd burned him.

' _Er ist jüdisch_ ,' he spat. Zola stepped forward, past Lewis, eyes raking over Steve's body. Steve lifted his chin defiantly. He was terrified and would be damned if he showed it.

'What is your name?' Zola asked.

'Rogers,' Steve replied.

'And your first name?' Zola prodded, his tone calm and kind. Steve frowned at him.

'Steven.'

'This is not a terribly Jewish name,' he remarked. He reached out to touch Steve's arm, and Steve stepped back out of his reach. A man with a gun behind them pushed him back into line with bruising force. Steve nearly fell. 'Well?' Zola prompted, like Steve’s fucking name warranted an explanation.

'Not all of us are named Shalom Jacob Abramowitsch,' Steve said harshly. Zola smiled thinly.

'You know, Steven,' Zola said, reaching out to touch Steve again. A gun dug harshly into his back and Steve didn't move back again. He lifted Steve's arm and looked over his thin frame like he was a calf up for slaughter. His eyes swept over the blood soaked uniform, the deep wound across his side, and his hands tugged gently at the red and white arm band. He released Steve, and Steve jerked out of his grasp the second he could. 'You have sustained a serious injury. You are a medic, so I'm sure you are aware you have been bleeding from the head and into your abdominal cavity for many hours now. You look terrible, you know.'

'He looks fine,' Lewis snapped, no doubt trying to get Zola's attention off Steve. 'If you want a lab rat from my men, you're gonna have to take me. You certainly can't have a medic. He's already been wounded; you're supposed to repatriate him.'

'But you are still standing,' Zola continued, ignoring Lewis. 'Why is such a little man like you still standing with such an injury?' Lewis was glaring knives at Zola just as fiercely as Steve was. 'Well?' he prompted again.

'I'm just lucky, I guess,' Steve said when Zola waited patiently.

'You know, Steven,' Zola said. 'I do important work here. I think that what I do will make the human race much healthier, much stronger. More evolved. You look like a man who could use more health.'

'No,' Lewis said. 'You cannot chose one of my men for your sick little experiments. You cannot torture a medic. You want a sample from one of my men, you take me.'

'I'll have the Jew,' Zola told him. He turned to his men, gesturing at Steve airily. 'Take the medic to the labs,' he ordered in German. 'Put the others in the pens.' An armed soldier grabbed Steve roughly, nearly yanking his arm out of its socket.

'Hey!' Steve protested, stepping back. A soldier hit him hard, between the shoulders, with a gun's butt, knocking him to his knees. He fell hard into the packed dirt. It jarred his injuries and he wondered if he'd die from them alone. Fuck, he hurt. He fucking _hurt_. 

'I could have you shot in the back of the head,' Zola said easily, 'like we do the rest of the Jews we capture, if you prefer.' Steve looked up at him desperately, hating everything about the twisted little man.

'Or you can try it my way,' Zola offered. 'At least my way, the goal is to make you survive. The tests have killed many but that is not their goal.'

'I don't actually have a choice, do I?' Steve pointed out.

'No,' Zola agreed, 'my little Jew, you do not.'

 

^^^

German he couldn't understand swirled around him, scientists and doctors talking amongst themselves. The pain didn't swirl; it jabbed and cut and burned and tore. It pierced until Steve felt himself screaming with it, unable to struggle past the fire ripping thru his body. The pain didn't swirl. Such a delicate word could never be applied to this.

His entire body was filled with needles, needles sending fire and acid and glass into the every fibre of his being. He didn't know what they'd been pumping into him, but he was tearing apart and ripping apart and burning and _searing_ and raw.

'Steven,' a quiet voice called, a gentle touch breaking thru pain against his forehead. 'Steven, it's time to come back.'

'Rogers, medic, PF—PFC,' Steve tried, refusing to give anything other than what he'd been told he could give back home. It was getting harder and harder. His diaphragm kept locking open and his entire body burned with the need for a few solid, good breaths. He'd never felt breathlessness so unlike the tightness of an asthma attack.

'No, no, Steven,' the voice said. Steve knew his eyes were functional—his left eye healed miraculously the first day just like the wounds to his side by whatever they'd given him—but pain made it hard to process what he saw. He saw Zola. Zola stood next to his gurney, in the strange white suits the scientists had started wearing in the last few torture sessions disguised as medical experiments. The clear glass protecting his face was flecked with red but his glasses were spotless behind it. Steve wondered if the red flecks belonged to him. It was misted. He wondered if his lungs were filling with blood. He wondered if he was finally going to be declared a failed experiment and put down, like Patterson when his skin stopped regenerating under their peeling scalpels. His lungs burned as much as the rest of him. It meant nothing.

'Five,' he said.

'You are getting stronger, Steven,' Zola promised, his gloved touch on Steve's face soft and a mockery of comfort. 'Do you feel it? Tell me what you feel.' It was an order but it felt to Steve like coaxing. Steve wanted to cry, he wanted to admit how much it hurt because then maybe they'd stop or maybe they'd kill him. Maybe death couldn't be worse than this.

'Four,' he continued. 'Nine, eight—'

'Steven, I need you to focus,' Zola interrupted. 'We've had you here for weeks and you have already given us these numbers. I need you to focus!'

'Five, eight, seven,' he ground out. He'd never had to focus so hard in his life. How dare Zola accuse him of not focusing. Keeping in screaming and begging required the most intense focus he'd ever ever had. 'Zero.'

A German voice cut over him. Zola replied in the same foreign tongue and Steve couldn't resist the urge to twist in his restraints as the pain roiled underneath him. He was sure the restraints were getting tighter, closer, and the world felt like it was shifting beneath his back. He felt like his spine was bending under his skin. He slammed his skull back into the table almost involuntarily, his hearing ringing and vision dimming for a second, hard.

'Steven,' Zola called. 'Steven. You are the only one left. You are the only one to have survived this long. Sickly, small, _jüdisch_... Why is it you have survived?' Lightning shot down his spine and burned thru his ribs and hips. It was worse than any pain his scoliosis had ever caused him. It was worse than anything he'd ever imagined.

'Rogers,' he gasped, feeling tears stream from his eyes, burning hot against his lids and cool against his feverish cheeks. 'Medic—PF—C—'

'Should we increase your radiation?' Zola asked. 'You are stabilising the serum so well. If we had a way to make you saturate better, this process would be quicker. I'm sorry for that. As it is, it will be several more days, several more treatments, I think. It is finally working.'

'Five,' he struggled.

'But you are getting stronger, Steven; can you feel it?'

'Four,' Steve bit out. Steve heard himself whimper before he lost track of where he was in his number. He lost track of everything, lost track of where he was, who he was, if he _existed_ beyond the agony shearing thru every molecule and atom and cell. He couldn't hear Zola anymore, couldn't see the strange suits anymore, couldn't feel the burn of radiation, couldn't even taste his own blood. Everything was white-hot and tearing and shearing and impossible. He knew then, certainly, he was dying, like everyone else had, like Patterson had, screaming and tearing apart. He was dying. He'd never see Bucky again. He was dying.

' _Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu_ ,' he began, thinking of his mother, and the way she’d led him thru the prayer twice a day when she was healthy, when he’d done it when she wasn’t.

'Increase the radiation,' Zola ordered, repeating himself in German. A machine kicked back into life and Steve felt his lips crack with dryness as his mouth fell open, slack.

He lost his grip on the prayer. All he had was pain.

 

He screamed.

^^^

Peggy left the briefing as quickly as she could, pushing the tent’s flaps back. The rain was of course still pouring, but Peggy didn’t have time to waste worrying about the wet. Her boots sunk slightly into the muddy gravel as she hurried back to the tent where she’d left Bucky, who was begrudgingly typing up notes from her late night briefing the night before.

He was still working, settled in front of the ancient typewriter, bundled in his uniform and a woollen hat, impossibly endearing and soft. Bucky looked over at her, his fingers not slowing until he saw her face.

‘Peggy? What’s going on?’ Bucky asked, immediately concerned. His hands lifted off the typewriter, her notepad’s neat handwriting smudged in one corner with a coffee ring. ‘What happened in the briefing?’

‘There was an ambush on the front,’ she said. Her heart was pounding in her chest and Bucky stood to take her elbow. He sat her down, and Peggy usually wasn’t like _this_. She wasn't delicate. She wasn't a fainting damsel, but this was _Steve_ , _God damn it_. 

‘What happened?’ Bucky repeated, sitting in his own chair, pressing one of his hands into hers. ‘How many?’ he asked when she remained silent.

‘Less than fifty returned,’ she said quietly. ‘Most of the men were captured. They’ve been taken to a HYDRA base thirty miles behind the front. Phillips won’t be sold on trying a rescue, and he won’t be sold on the idea of giving you your first covert op to attack a base like this.’

‘Why are you so shaken?’ Bucky asked. ‘I’d have thought you’d be up in a rally about giving the investment a chance.’ She pulled her hand away, because she’d never mentioned it to Bucky. Erskine hadn’t told him, and he had always had a reason for everything. She had never mentioned Steve to Bucky either, and she’d even seen Steve a few times since they’d come to the front. She passed on Bucky’s letters, watched Steve read them, fond.

‘The one-oh-seventh was taken,’ Peggy said, and Bucky froze. His hands slid from hers. ‘No medical personnel made it back.’ Bucky rubbed his hand against his mouth, hard, before his eyes met hers, steely and afraid.

‘Peggy, you gotta understand, my best friend—’

‘Steve, I know. He’s on the casualty list,’ she interrupted. Bucky ran a hand over his mouth again, looking distinctly green, and Peggy winced for him thru her own worry. ‘I tried to get you permission to perform the five-man rescue you’d proposed, but they won’t risk hitting this base with something that they think will fail.’

‘Find a way to get me in alone,’ he said. ‘Orders or no.’ He stood, moving to his kit in the corner, changing into battle fatigues, right in front of her. She didn’t bother turning to preserve his modesty; she marched right up to him and punched the back of his shoulder. It was like a wall, all muscle and tendon. He yelped and turned to stare at her, intimidatingly bulky and unnecessarily clutching his shoulder.

‘What the hell is that, Barnes?’ she snapped. ‘You don’t give me orders. You certainly don’t tell me to break mine.’

‘It’s _Steve_ ,’ Bucky said, a little desperate. ‘Peggy, he’s my best friend.’ His blue eyes almost won her over just in their sincerity, but her head drew up the plans Bucky had had which now wouldn’t work, and her heart was filled with acid because Steve was one of the missing men. Steve might already be dead. The acid made it hard to focus on logic, and she hated herself for it. She worked so hard to not be seen as delicate and here she was nearly disarmed by her worry for a five-foot-four asthmatic with no place at war in the first place.

‘You’d be deserting, Bucky,’ she pointed out. ‘You can’t expect a one-man invasion to work on a HYDRA weapons factory.’

‘It’s a one man job on the way in,’ Bucky said, with that quiet thinking expression she’d come to know so well in the last few months. She stepped back, giving him room, and he did shift his weight, if he didn’t pace like he often did. She stared. ‘Think about it. They captured a significant portion of the men alive. It’s a factory. If a man is well enough to work efficiently, which they’d need at the volume they’re putting out, he’s well enough to fight. It’s a one man job to the lock-ups, and then its just a matter of letting the men arm themselves.’

‘HYDRA won’t exactly leave enough to outfit a rebellion on hand—’

‘It’s a weapons factory, Pegs,’ he said, turning away and pulling his battle greens on. ‘There’s enough.’ He turned back to her, imploring and scared. She felt the same. ‘I’ll walk to him if I have to,’ he promised. ‘Give me a way to get there while there’s still a chance for him. He'd do the same for any one of the men captured; you know he would.’ Howard’s plane jumped unbidden into her eye, and she turned, mind made up. ‘Peggy?’

‘Give me ten minutes.’

^^^

Bucky followed the prisoners' directions to the isolation ward as they broke into a weapons’ store. As he hurried up the stairs, actively thankful he ran inhumanly fast for the first time he could think of, he heard the first few rackets of machine guns. He wondered how many of the men would die escaping. He wondered how long they would have lasted here if he hadn’t come.

The first room in the isolation ward was empty, two steel gurneys placed in the middle of the room. They were littered in various leather restraints, and stained red. He drew back from the doorway and continued down the hallway. The next room smelled awful, like sweat and fear and blood, even tho it was just as empty as the one before, and the next. His stomach roiled at the smell. He'd thought the pens smelled something awful, with prisoners even dirtier than any shellhead Bucky'd seen at the front. God, this was worse than even that. This rank of death.

Bucky stuck his head into an office, and spotted a map. He crept into the room, tracing his eyes over the pins and flags. There were six flags, not including Azzano. Other factories. HYDRA would be outproducing the Allies in weapons in no time unless at least half of these factories were wiped out. Bucky left the office, aware he only had so much time before the escape triggered some sort of alarm or security. The fourth lab, and the first door on the opposite side of the hall that didn't lead to an office, held a different smell, danker, and worse. This smell hadn't had time to stale. The lab wasn't empty.

Steve was there, strapped to a table. His feet were bare; his uniform was tattered. He shook like an old man with palsy. His wrists and arms were trapped in heavy, metal cuffs and his legs were bound in heavy, leather straps. Bucky rushed to his side, reaching out to touch his face and pulling back at the last second, hesitating. Steve was pale, shaking, muttering under his breath. Silvered, years-old-but-new-to-Bucky scars cut four swooping lines across the left of his face. His eyes traced one that ran along the line of a strong jaw, and he frowned.

'Steve,' Bucky whispered, unsure why he was hushed in a empty wing. He touched Steve's cheek and pulled back at the shockingly hot feeling of his skin. He felt like he did when he used to get real sick at home, when doctors would stress about whether he'd make it or not. Bucky still didn't know that stupid prayer, not even in English. ' _Stevie_ , hey.' His eyes opened, unfocused and pupils blown, trailing absently over Bucky's looming figure.

'Rogers. Medic, PFC,' Steve muttered, rote and exhausted, 'five, four, n-nine—'

'Steve!' Bucky snapped harshly. He didn't have much time, and, _Jesus_ , what had they been doing to him? He remembered having received instructions to provide name and rank if tortured and his heart skipped at the thought of Steve in pain. He glanced at the door—empty—and back down to Steve.

His eyelids fluttered and his blown pupils shifted onto Bucky, suddenly seeing him there. His eyebrows drew together.

'Buck?' Steve asked, unsure.

'Yeah, pal, it's me,' Bucky promised. Steve's eyes searched his and then his chapped white lips broke out in a grin, huge and exhausted, looking fit for hysterics. Bucky absently noted he still had all his teeth. He didn't feel too far off from hysterics himself. He clapped Steve's little face with one hand, holding him, and his own eyes burned. Steve looked terrible. His hair was greasy and foul with old sweat. It was grubby, lying away from his face and making his cheekbones seem more gaunt than they were. Something was strange. He looked almost like he'd broadened since Bucky had last seen him in Brooklyn. He looked like he'd put on weight, even after weeks of playing prisoner. Something was wrong with that, and it tickled the back of Bucky's brain.

'Bucky,' Steve gasped. His shitty lungs struggled to expand with the breath for words. 'You're here. You're _really_ here. You're really here, right?'

'Yeah, Stevie, I'm here,' he promised. 'I thought you were dead.'

'I thought you were stateside,' Steve replied. Bucky reached down and tore the restraints off at their hinges. Steve surged, trying to sit and falling against Bucky. His hands wrapped Bucky's biceps to catch himself. 'Whoa,' Steve said. 'I thought you were smaller.'

'Right back atchya, punk,' Bucky said, hauling Steve off the table. He made to pull them to the hallways and Steve resisted. He pulled out of Bucky’s arms too easily.

'My packs,' he said insanely. 'A medic never goes without restocking—'

'Stevie, we ain't got time—' Bucky snapped.

Steve stumbled away from him, opening an unlocked cupboard. He yanked out his helmet and pack harness. Bucky counted five helmets in the locker's shelving. He wondered what had happened to them. His gaze swept over the half-dozen identical lockers along the back wall, before being pulled back to focus on Steve again, but not before realising how many men had been held in this same room before Steve. Steve tugged on the handle of a cabinet filled with medical supplies, only to have the handle clack, locked. Bucky watched, half-horrified and half-amazed as Steve slammed his palm thru the glass of a locked cabinet, shaking pieces out of his hand almost absently. By the time he'd stuffed his packs full of suture kits, gauze and sulfa, his hand had knit back together, not even a mark left behind, just healthy pink skin under still-wet blood, rejecting bits of glass as his skin healed around them.

'What happened to you?' Bucky asked as he took Steve's arm, because rapid healing or not, he was still drugged to the gills and swaying and stumbling and visibly different and fucked up.

'Nothing,' Steve lied. 'What happened to you?'

'I got promoted,' Bucky said evasively.

They ran.

^^^

A few of the men had stolen a couple of tanks before everything blew up, so they put the sickest and the wounded inside them, or perched 'em on the sides if they could hold on. Steve took shoes off of a German body, looking guilty as a masturbating nun to do so. He arranged the body neatly and seemed to linger a little too long, staring at what even Bucky recognised could have been survivable wounds if someone had gotten to him in time. Steve sat in the mud and debris next to the man, brushing his feet off with dirty hands best he could.

'He's dead, Stevie,' Bucky pointed out. 'He doesn't mind.' Steve shook his head, pulling the black leather onto his feet. They were too big, unlike the easy, loose fit of his med uniform. Bucky imagined he’d swum in it before.

'It's just—we're thirty miles behind the front,' Steve explained. 'And then we have to hike back to base besides. I'd really prefer to have shoes.'

'He’s dead, Steve,' Bucky said again. 'He doesn’t mind.'

'Ken,' Steve agreed. 'Yeah.'

'We have to move,' Bucky said. Steve nodded, picking up one of the med packs he'd stuffed full in that lab. He lifted off that knee that he'd hurt real bad one spring, took a few steps with Bucky, and let it fall against the joint. It bounced and it didn't fuck up Stevie's gait. Come to think, Stevie's gait wasn't fucked up. He'd always walked funny to compensate for his scoliosis, swinging his hip back and his leg around, in order to keep up if not look normal. His back was pretty damn straight now, shoulders mostly level, legs and hips moving closer to normal, and Bucky worried.

'You OK?' Bucky asked, touching Steve's shoulder.

'Fine,' Steve lied, and marched his new walk a little more determinedly to get away from Bucky's hand. Bucky trailed after him, falling into line of the marching men. There were a few dozen French and British soldiers among them, maybe twice as many Canadians, but mostly Americans from the one-oh-seventh and a few other officers. Bucky counted nearly four hundred men altogether. It was overwhelming.

'I'm glad you're not dead,' Bucky offered. 'God, Steve, I was so scared.'

'You glad enough you wish we were heading home from the docks?' Steve asked. Bucky laughed. He remembered that night fondly. God, it had been a long time since they'd made love.

'Yeah, Steve, I do,' he promised. Steve gave him a half smile, sincere but dimmed by whatever sadness hid in the shadows under his eyes. Bucky pushed his worry down. There'd be time for that later. Now was time to pretend they were friends only, pretend Steve was fine, and pretend the war had been won with this battle.

^^^

Bucky followed Phillips into his tent, after having tried to turn himself over for disciplinary action. Steve and the other wounded had been swept away with interest. Word had gotten out quick that Steve had been the first recovered survivor of the experiments the Nazi’s deep science division was apparently infamous for. The doctors had swept him away from Bucky’s side almost too eagerly.

Bucky stood at attention as Phillips settled at his worktable, the rickety wooden chair. His uniform was still in tatters, and grime from days of marching began to itch at his skin. One boot had torn itself away from the sole and his foot was absolutely soaked and uncomfortable. Phillips didn’t look pleased, and Bucky didn’t turn as Peggy slipped in behind him, smelling lovely as ever.

‘Sit,’ Phillips said. ‘The both of you.’

They did, and they waited while Phillips stared at them, looking generally displeased. Sirens rang in the distance; the brouhaha from the rescued’s arrival had died down. The soundtrack of wartime had settled once again. Bucky glanced at Peggy, who sat perfectly made up, chin lifted proudly. Bucky grinned at that, before remembering himself and sobering.

‘I’m in a difficult position,’ Phillips said finally. ‘I knew you’d be trouble from the day you snuck into Carter’s intelligence bullpen begging for a job,’ he said, pointing a pen at Bucky. ‘And you’ve always been trouble,’ he added, pointing at Peggy.

‘Sir, Sergeant Barnes was under my command at the time of his desertion,’ Peggy said, and Bucky snapped his head to glare at her. He’d do the same if one of his men had done what he’d did, but it still stung to have someone take his fall. ‘Any discipline should be handed off to me. He was my responsibility and I didn’t make any effort to stop him.’

‘Humph,’ said Phillips, unimpressed. Peggy held his gaze until he broke it to guide Bucky’s attention to a map on the wall. Bucky recognised it immediately and stood, understanding what Phillips wanted before he said it.

‘I only found one office before the alarms went off,’ Bucky said. He took a pen from Phillips’ desk and crossed to the map, marking them off.

‘And the sixth one was about here,’ Bucky finished, stepping away. Phillips looked less displeased now, and Bucky placed the pen back on the table. ‘It was maybe thirty five miles west of the Maginot line.’ Peggy looked impressed, and Phillips no longer looked murderous, so he played humble. ‘I just glanced at it.’

‘Did you learn anything more from the rescued prisoners?’ Peggy asked.

‘There are a few French Resistance men who are willing to give you everything in exchange for repatriation, one who wants active duty here,’ Bucky said. ‘They worked as clerks; shipping manifests have followed major attacks in the last six months, and they have six weeks of future shipment plans to hand over. And these are just the weapons factories we know about,’ Bucky added, gesturing back to the map.

‘Private Rogers said that experimental parts were shipped to another facility that is not on this map,’ Bucky said. ‘Our best bet to find out where it is is to utilise the French’s information, and have Agent Carter coordinate with MI6 to find the main HYDRA base.’

‘And what would you have yourself do?’ Phillips asked, less condescending than usual, leaning back with his hands folded over his stomach.

‘I’d like to go after Schmidt, sir,’ Bucky said. He stood at parade rest, hoping he seemed as assured as he did not feel. ‘I’d like to take out his factories, one by one. The Germans will outrun our munitions production in a few months if these aren’t destroyed. They operate fourteen hours a day, and there’s little reason to not work the men to death.’

Phillips sighed.

‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Phillips said. ‘Senator Brandt kicked up one hell of a storm when we realised you’d gone AWOL. He wants to shut this whole division down, losing you. If you’re going to be putting his governmental investment at risk every other day, he’ll need something in return, or he’ll shut down the SSR.’ Bucky nodded, waiting to be handed a boat ticket back stateside. Maybe Steve would be invalided home too.

‘You’ll sign away some additional rights,’ Phillips said. ‘He wants to use you as a character called Captain America, sell comics for the war effort. The story of what you did has already made it back to the newsreels back home. There’s clamour for more and you know the homefront needs something to keep the money coming.’

‘A comic book character, sir?’ Bucky repeated. Peggy looked at Phillips like he had half a brain. Phillips didn’t seem to pleased himself.

‘It’ll shut him up,’ Phillips said. ‘Turning you into a symbol, makes the investment more viable if you end up shot in the head. You’ll accept the commission of Captain America, and we’ll put together a team for you to clear your map.’ Bucky looked at the map, the six factories and the dozens of smaller bases. He met Peggy’s eye and she raised a brow challenging him. She was thinking the same thing he was.

‘I’ll get my own team, sir,’ Bucky said. ‘Thank you.’

He swept out.

^^^

'Heya,' Bucky said, sitting next to Steve. Steve had settled himself out near the edge of base camp, settled on the ground with a tree at his back. He was facing back the way they’d come, surprised, despite Bucky’s loud steps against cracking twigs, to see him.

'Hiya, Buck,' Steve said quietly. He was drawing in the dirt of the ground, something Bucky couldn't quite make out yet. It was dark and the dirt wasn't evenly packed. Bits of wood and pinecone and grass made it harder to see.

‘The doctors finally finished with you, huh?’ Bucky asked. Steve nodded. ‘They figure out what happened? What made you, uh—What changed you?’

‘About a third of what happened to you,’ Steve said. ‘Doctor Erskine’s formula changed your cells twice as much, and whatever Stark’s gas did made you grow more than the radiation they blasted me with. I set off four Geiger-Müller tubes in there.’ Steve shrugged. ‘They say the radioactive traces will fade, but my changes should be as permanent as yours.’ Bucky nodded, absorbing that. He remembered his procedure. He’d been in a state of cellular change for maybe three minutes, and it had been excruciating. If it hadn’t been immediately pushed out of his mind by Doctor Erskine’s death, he thought he’d have had nightmares about it. He couldn’t imagine having that change take place over days or weeks. He couldn’t imagine it in tandem with radiation scalding at him. The Vita-Rays hadn't even hurt; hell, they were like a rush of menthol salve on a burn.

'How are you holding up?' Bucky asked, scooting a little closer in the dirt. His hip bumped Steve's. Steve didn't bump back but he didn't pull away. Bucky wanted Steve to lean his head into his shoulder, tuck his head under Bucky's chin, but he wasn’t actually a giant girl, so he wasn’t about to ask to cuddle.

'Holding up?' Steve echoed, like Bucky was an idiot for asking. Bucky nodded.

'Yeah, you schmuck, _holding up_ ,' he repeated. Steve ignored him, so Bucky pressed. 'You were a prisoner of war for months, Stevie. You're Jewish and you're—you were sick and injured when you guys got to the factory, the way Dugan tells it. I don't imagine it was easy—'

'I'm fine,' Steve said, cutting Bucky off. He tossed his stick away. 'Quit asking about it, will ya?'

'No,' Bucky said. 'Aren't you the one usually telling me we gotta talk things out? Don't you gotta run your mouth every time we saw something unfair back home?' Steve smacked his arm, and then glanced at the newfound bulk of it. Bucky wondered if Steve was into that sort of muscles thing, or if this new muscle would prove to be a turn-off. Bucky's BOQ had thick walls and an honest-to-God lock on the door. Steve'd been in medical for days, while Bucky poured over maps and argued that he should choose his team, but maybe he'd be eager and willing to test out their new bodies.

'This isn't the same thing,' Steve snapped, and Buck winced. 'There's nothing to talk about this time. What happened happened and we don't gotta talk about it.'

'Maybe I wanna know 'cause I'm worried about you,' Bucky retorted. 'You ever think about that? I thought you were _dead_ , kid. I thought they'd killed you for sure. I just got you back and something is wrong—'

'I'm healthier coming out of there than I was going in, Buck,' Steve interrupted. He faced Bucky then, finally, and Bucky almost would have said he saw guilt in those eyes. What on earth did Steve have to feel guilty for? 'They did something awful to me, sure, but I seemed to have benefitted, haven't I?'

Bucky didn't know what to say to that. Steve shook his head, his thick hair falling into his face.

'Look, I don't got a right to sit around whining when there were guys in my lab who didn't survive those tests, let alone—' He broke off, tossing another twig into the dark night. Bucky watched his wrist, noting the lost fragility of his bones. Steve was taller, more filled out, and his voice didn't look outta place coming out of a sunken face anymore. His jaw was strong and sure. He wasn't as big as Bucky still, not even as big as Buck had been before the serum, but he didn't look so sick or frail neither, just little. Bucky, enhanced hearing and all, could barely hear his lungs whistle. He hated the fact that Steve's newfound health was tempered by the dark shadows in his eyes. He wouldn't meet Bucky's eyes, trying to keep that dark shadow to himself. 'I got off good. They skinned Sergeant Patterson. They cut him down and whatever they'd done to him, his skin just kept growing back. For hours.'

Bucky winced and looked away. His stomach roiled at the idea.

'He was _screaming_ , Buck, and they just cut him right back down,' Steve confessed, his voice cracking. Bucky leaned into Steve, trying to comfort even as he felt sick hearing it.  'For hours. Days, fuck, I don't know. And Davis—they gave him the same stuff they gave me and he had this—this fit. They shot him in the stomach and left him to bleed out overnight.'

'Jesus,' Bucky whispered and Steve laughed, dark and wet and broken. His head fell onto Bucky's shoulder. Bucky pressed his cheek into Steve's hair, clean and soft and thick.

'So I got off easy,' Steve said. 'I don't have a right to claim I didn't, no matter how much it—no matter if it hurt. My spine is straighter, my lungs are better, I can see all sorts of colours I couldn't before and my heart hasn't skipped once since we left. How can I—they all died so horrible and I got fucking _fixed_.'

Stevie pulled away, wiping at his face while Bucky resolutely didn't notice his tears. Bucky cleared his own throat, because Steve had every right to be upset at what happened but it was his damn job to keep it together.

'You're still deaf as a post,' Bucky tried to joke, and Steve huffed slightly in agreement.

'What's that?' Steve echoed rotely, an ape of their old game from childhood. It didn't bring even a ghost of a smile to Steve's face tho, so Bucky dropped it.

'Steve, you were reciting your serial when I found you,' Bucky pointed out. 'That sounds an awful lot like torture. Maybe the fucking scientists did something other than just try to hurt you but it had you shaking in metal restraints. It hurt nonetheless.' Steve didn't reply and Bucky sighed. He took Steve's hand, marvelling at how long his palm had gotten. ‘I'm just saying, if you need some time—hell, most of these boys are getting shipped home and they didn't see what you saw—'

'The boys who saw what I saw are dead, Bucky,' Steve snapped. He yanked his hand away, pushing both into his hair. He braced his elbows on his knees, leaning away from Bucky. 'All of 'em. I'm the only one who survived those tests. I'm lucky. And I am not going home with cannon fever.' He took his hands out of his hair, turning to Buck. 'Besides, I get to serve under you now, don't I? Fix people up and take down HYRDA, right? Protect your sorry butt?'

'You're a medic right now. You're protected. If you follow me like that,' Bucky pointed out, hesitant, 'the Germans can shoot back. If you pick up a rifle, there's nothing to stop them—'

'That Convention did nothing to protect me this time,' Steve interrupted quietly. He looked down, shaking his head.

'Steve,' Bucky tried. Steve shook his head again, hoisting himself to his feet.

'I can't—I need to have a fighting chance next time they try to hurt me.'

Steve had never said anything like that before. Steve's mantra was that he 'could do this all day'. Steve did not back down. Steve did not admit that he'd had enough. Steve did not ever say that he had been hurt.

Bucky realised it had finally happened, as Steve walked away, back to base camp, without waiting for Bucky.

War had killed a part of his friend.

^^^

‘So let's get this straight,’ Dugan began, booming even in the brouhaha of the pub. Bucky grinned sheepishly, fiddling with the handle on his own pint. He’d been nursing it, keeping their glasses filled, as he explained his plans. He’d seen these men in action. They created plans on the go, letting each other lead and follow and managing to steal several tanks. They were the men Bucky wanted.

‘We barely got out of there alive and you want us to go back?’ Gabe asked, and he sounded half-sold on the idea without any convincing, just the idea. Bucky shrugged.

‘Pretty much,’ he admitted. The Brit with the fancy name considered, seeming intrigued.

‘Sounds rather fun, actually,’ he offered. Morita let out an incredibly foul burp before tossing his hat in the ring as well. Gabe confirmed for himself and Jacques, and they all turned to Dum Dum expectantly.

‘Hell,’ he said. ‘I'll always fight. But you gotta do one thing for me.’ Bucky nodded, because getting everyone on board could only serve him well. Dum Dum downed his beer, all in one go. ‘Open a tab!’ The men laughed uproariously and Bucky chuckled alongside them. He patted Gabe’s shoulder amicably.

‘Will do,’ he promised. ‘Drink to the new squad.’

Bucky pressed his way to the bar, where Steve lingered with his own drink and the draft copy of CAPTAIN AMERICA Brandt had sent to him with the stupid rights contracts. Apparently, the comic had already begun circulating stateside. Signing his rights away was almost an afterthought. Bucky groaned dramatically and Steve grinned up at him, from under shadows of wartime exhaustion in his eyes.  

‘Hey,’ Steve said, over the din. ‘This isn’t so bad,’ he lied, opening the black-and-white pages. ‘Look, they got your chin dimple. You know how I love that.’ Bucky hated the chin dimple, and Steve jabbed his little finger on a close-up cartoon panel of Bucky delivering a witty retort to an imagined German foe. Bucky snatched the comic. Steve laughed, coughing into the elbows he’d propped on the high bar.

‘Alright, enough of that,’ Bucky grumbled. ‘’S all stupid, Stevie. I only get to fight because they have a comic book of me back home?’

‘No,’ Steve said wisely, easily, sipping his giant beer, which dwarfed his hand and he didn’t struggle at all to lift. Foam was swept off his lip by a little pink tongue, and his cheeks were a little flushed from the alcohol. ‘You fight here because you’re a soldier, and you earned a place in command. You survived an experimental serum and used it to rescue four hundred soldiers, destroy a weapons factory, and collect more useful recon than the front has seen in months. The command is yours. You earned it. But the comic book isn’t for you.’

‘Who’s the book for, then, huh, genius?’ Bucky asked, gesturing for his own round. The bartender acknowledged him, and Bucky had to look back at Steve without a good reason not to. Steve looked surprised that Bucky didn’t know.

‘It’s for kids,’ Steve said. Bucky rolled his eyes and Steve hit his shoulder, like he always did, tho this time he hit with force. Bucky eyed Steve’s wiry, impossible strength. ‘I’m serious,’ he snapped. ‘It’s for kids who come from where we came from, to let them know they can always be strong enough to fight, even when people say they can’t.’ Bucky had preached that to Steve a thousand times if he’d said it once, just like that, when Steve was sick enough to be pitied. ‘Not every kid has a guy like you to get them outta trouble,’ Steve added softly. ‘It’s for kids who need a Bucky of their own.’

‘You saying I’m yours?’ Bucky murmured, and Steve looked away. ‘Well. Does the comic inspire you to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?’ Steve looked back then, unamused.

‘No,’ he said easily. ‘The guy who always had my back in Brooklyn, I’m going to follow him.’ Bucky thanked the bartender, leaving him a tray of pints for his table. Bucky raised a glass and Steve tapped their mugs together sarcastically. ‘Hey, are you gonna wear a uniform like the one they got here?’ Bucky considered, looking at the colour illustration on the cover. He hummed.

‘You know what?’ he said. ‘It’s growing on me.’ Bucky grinned up at Steve, only to see Steve’s gaze tracking someone else, intent and almost heated. Bucky turned, and there was Peggy, looking like—She looked like everything a woman was every supposed to be. She looked dangerous and strong, with that bold, red dress and her hair perfectly curling around her ears. She breezed past all the other soldiers, stopping in front of Steve and Bucky. Bucky was mildly aware they were both smiling softly, resolutely meeting her eyes and ignoring the package she’d made herself into.

‘Howard has some equipment for you to try,’ she told Bucky, cool as could be while wearing a dress made to inspire the passions of a thousand suns. ‘Tomorrow morning?’ she asked. Bucky nodded, unhurried and without breaking her gaze.

‘Sounds good,’ he agreed.

‘I see your top squad is prepping for duty,’ she said. Bucky could hear them drunkenly singing, a new round in front of them. He’d clearly taken too long for their tastes. Bucky knew Peggy played stoic and serious, but she liked music as much as the next person.

‘Peggy, don’t you like music?’ he teased. She smiled for real, sultry and skipping his head, even with Steve close enough to feel his heat.

‘I do, actually,’ she agreed, talking right past Bucky at Steve. ‘I might, even when this is all over, go dancing.’ She said it with a playful tone, and Bucky plastered his best grin in place. Steve’s thin skin was flushing, and Peggy smirked as Steve played chameleon with her dress.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’ he said. Peggy spared him a warm glance before looking right at Steve.

‘The right partner,’ she told Steve. ‘Oh-eight-hundred, Captain.’ With a click of her heels, she disappeared. They watched her leave, then turned to each other.

‘How do you know Peggy?’ Bucky asked, turning back to the bar. Steve mimicked him.

‘We met when I was in basic in Jersey,’ Steve said, and Bucky remembered the days when their letters from the medical detachment to the SSR base passed easily. Steve had never mentioned Peggy, but he supposed he hadn’t either. ‘She’d turn up at the front every so often, always came to see me. She’s, uh.’

‘She’s something else,’ Bucky agreed. Bucky heaved a sigh and Steve clapped his shoulder, consolation.

^^^

'Remember that time you took me to Coney Island?' Steve said dimly. Bucky looked down at him, grinning. Steve looked up at him, asthma cigarette between his lips and a black knit cap shoved over his little ears. Steve took the cigarette out of his mouth, exhaling smoke.

'Yep,' Bucky agreed. 'And I made you ride the Cyclone?'

'Yeah, and I threw up?' Steve pressed. Bucky nodded, still grinning. Steve eyed him suspiciously, taking another drag to try to make his lungs stop whistling in the cold. 'You don't happen to still think that was hilarious, do you?' he asked, his words a puff of herbal smoke.

'Why would I think that?' Bucky asked, surveying their zip line. Dugan overheard them and boomed out a laugh. Bucky shot him a grin.

'You guys were right; Zola is on the train,' Gabe called. 'He's just got permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he's going, they want him there bad.'

'Vous avez presque dix seconds d'atterrir,' Dernier told them. 'Il faut bouger maintenant.'

'Miss that ten seconds, boys, and you're bugs on a windshield,' Bucky called. Jacques heaved the zip grip over the line. Steve tossed his cigarette with a final drag, and Bucky made sure to line up ahead of him.

'Better get moving, bugs!' Dum Dum called.

They went on Dernier's marks and they landed easily on the train. Bucky checked and only Jones had made it before the window had passed. Everyone else was still on the ledge. He signed for Jones to take the engine room while they took the guards no doubt along the length of the high speed train. Jones nodded, and he and Steve swung down into the train.

He heaved the door shut behind them and the roar of wind and engine cut out immediately. Steve huffed a big breath of relief, and Bucky clapped his shoulder before sliding his shield onto his arm.

'Feeling alright?' he asked. Steve glared up at him, tugging his tuque back into place.

'I'm gonna kill you if you ever make me do that crap again,' he snapped. ''M fine.'

'Deal,' Bucky promised, and led the way towards the engine room. No doubt there was surveillance on the train; they had only a couple minutes until guards were notified. Hopefully they rushed to shoot at Captain America before Gabe broke into the engine room to stop the train.

The doors slid shut behind him, and he spun in time to see Steve trapped in the other car. He hit the open button and it ignored him. Steve fired at the guards entering the other side of his car, before ducking behind a crate for cover. Bucky could hear bullets pinging around him.

He heard the whirl of a weapon charging, and turned in time to get his shield up against a blue blast. By the time he'd knocked the gun man out and blasted the locked door open, Steve was tossing his second gun to his feet and covering his head reflexively as bullets clanged closer. He'd gotten one, it seemed, with the other at an impossible angle but about to round a crate to shoot Steve dead.

He punched the open button and the doors slid open. Steve looked up at the sound and Bucky hefted him a pistol. He moved his head slightly and Steve nodded. Bucky charged and slammed an enormous crate towards the guard. He stepped out of the way, out from his cover, and Steve shot him in the face.

Steve didn't look any happier about that than he did any other time he'd killed on Bucky's coattails. He'd lamented to Buck once, when they'd tried to get drunk and found Steve still easily locked and that Bucky just couldn't manage it anymore, that every time he killed he ticked one off the men he'd saved as a medic and the number was gonna go negative eventually. Bucky hated that.

He looked at Steve in the silence. His breaths were whistling again. This dry cold really did not suit him, half-assed-Zola-serum or no.

'I had him on the ropes,' Steve pointed out. Bucky snorted, resisting the urge to remember the idiocy of Little Steve fighting in alleys with anything resembling fondness. He adjusted his grip on his shield, ready to slide it onto his back.

'I know you did,' he said nonetheless, like he had since they were twelve.

The whirl of the ridiculously big gun sounded, and Bucky yanked Steve behind him with one hand, the other raising his shield up. He didn't have a good grip, and sure enough he was knocked to the side as the blast hit at an angle. He hit the metal husk of the train hard, making his breath abandon his chest for a moment. Wind whipped at him as the other side of the train was blown open by the deflection. The whirl sounded again and he looked up.

Steve had hoisted the shield up, firing his pistol to cover Bucky while he recovered from being stunned out of air. The blue blast fired again.

'Steve!' he cried, as the blast hit him. He heard his shield bounce against the wall as Steve went flying.

He scrambled up, grabbing his shield and throwing it with all his might—strength that could peel tank armour back like clapboard—and the gunman went flying, guns sparking and disabled. He ripped his cowl off, leaning out the busted wall.

' _Steve_!' he screamed. Steve dangled, hanging from one of the rails, barely holding on against the wind and speed. 'Hold on!' he shouted. He braced his feet against the hull's ridges, starting to edge out himself. He put his feet along the open side the train and reached out as far as he could. Steve looked terrified, staring back at him. His blonde hair streamed in the wind; his cap was gone.

'Hold on!' he shouted, unwilling to believe they were out of options. 'Steve, I'll grab you—' He held onto the rail, one sturdily attached, and reached, climbing out further. Steve tried to reach but his grip was precarious at best. Bucky would have to grab him. He swore his hand brushed Steve's coat.

The railing broke, and Steve fell. He fell, fast and away from Bucky as the train carried him away and Steve fell to his death.

Bucky watched him fall, watched his best friend, his everything, until he couldn’t see him beyond the rocks, the mountain, the ravine below.

^^^

‘Captain,’ someone said, and Bucky couldn’t bring himself to move. He had settled in the pub, like he had when Steve had first been rescued. It had been bombed out since that time last year. Most of everything had been bombed out since that time last year. He wasn’t seeing the table or bottle in front of him; it swam in front of his eyes. He felt cold, like the top of the mountain, but the serum didn’t let him feel cold. Steve was the one who had been cold up there. Steve had fallen. Steve had tried to defend Bucky and been blasted out and off of the train.

Steve had fallen to his death.

Steve was dead.

‘Captain,’ someone called again. ‘Bucky.’ A hand touched his shoulder and he looked up, blank. Peggy stood there, solemn. She turned a rickety chair, and she sat quietly. She met his eyes and he let his gaze slide away. He felt cold.

‘Are you with me, Bucky?’ she asked. Bucky nodded. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about Steve, but it wasn't your fault.’ Bucky scoffed.

‘Did you read the reports?’ he asked. She hesitated before agreeing. ‘Then you know that’s not true.’

‘Because you didn’t jump after him, have you both killed?’ she asked, stubborn as always. ‘There was nothing more you could’ve done. I’ve seen the two of you fight, Bucky. You always did everything you could do to keep him safe’

‘I should’ve got him sent home with cannon fever when they’d given me my commission,’ Bucky said. ‘Fuck,’ he said, and his voice cracked. Peggy took his hand and he squeezed about half as hard as he dared, terrified of hurting her. ‘I should’ve made him safe.’

‘You and I both know Steve would have swum the ocean and crawled his way back to your side if you’d tried,’ Peggy said. Bucky coughed, because commission or no he had never been able to force Steve to do absolutely everything. ‘Steve wanted to fight more fiercely than any man I’ve ever known. I’m going to miss him terribly.’

‘So will I,’ Bucky said. Peggy took his glass, taking a drink that would do more for her frame than the bottle would do to Bucky. He pulled from the bottle to drink with her nonetheless.

‘Did we love Steve the same way, Bucky?’ she asked. He looked over at her, her glossy eyes and the tight pinch of her lips. She certainly looked as destroyed as he felt. Bucky looked down at their hands, and she squeezed his hand as she let out the tiniest sob.

‘He was a terrible dancer, Peggy,’ Bucky said. ‘He’d have needed someone like you to teach him. I’d’a been no good.’ Peggy wiped her eyes, and Bucky took his hand back to do the same.

‘We might’ve found a way,’ she said, and she steeled, tucking the rose-petal soft tears behind the razor wire she so often had herself wrapped inside. ‘We have work to do, Captain.’ He stood, and he led her out of the ruin to plan.

^^^

Bucky hated the fact he was shaking.

He was still cold, with the broken hull letting cold, thin air whistle past. Even after the fight, with someone who hit as hard as he could, he felt cold. His hands shook from watching a man dissolve into space. His head felt a bit clouded from a backhanded impact with his shield and his vision swam just enough to make reading German biometric control labels a challenge. It’d clear up in a few minutes, but he might not have that time. The controls were damaged from an impact and from the energy of whatever the Cube had done to Schmidt; even on autopilot, the plane was shifting, unsteady and drifting slightly in its course. He settled behind the controls. The radio, at least, should work.

Bucky flicked it on, taking stock of his situation. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

‘This is Captain Barnes,’ he shouted, over the wind and the sound of the engines. The displays weren’t reading consistently; he knew something had been hit by a blast of Schmidt’s gun, but he couldn’t tell what, just that they were listing and speeding up and the controls were too jammed to correct it. ‘Do you copy? Does anyone—’

‘Captain Barnes!’ Jim copied. ‘What is your location?’

‘Bucky!’ Peggy’s voice cut in, anxious and terrible. ‘Where are you? Are you all right?’ She sounded panicked, and Bucky couldn’t blame her.

‘I’m fine!’ he called. ‘Schmidt’s dead.’

‘What about the plane?’ she asked, and Bucky hesitated as static crackled. The radio might not last long enough to try anything more than goodbye, Bucky realised, looking at how much of the controls were damaged, the fact they were freakishly advanced HYDRA tech beyond his ability, let alone with biometric checks on the arming system.

‘It’s a lost cause,’ Bucky said, and Peggy cut him off.

‘I’ll find you a safe crash landing site; where—’

‘There’s no safe crash landing site,’ Bucky said. ‘Pegs, the controls are jammed. The navigation is locked, the weapons are armed, and there’s not enough functioning to change a damn thing.’

‘I’ll get Howard on the line,’ Peggy said, desperate. ‘He’ll know what to do.’

‘Peggy,’ Bucky said again, his cold heart twisting hot and painful all over. ‘If I wait too long, this thing will drop its payload and a whole lotta people are gonna die.’ Static hissed again and Bucky prayed the connection stayed live. ‘I gotta put it in the water. It’ll stop the plane, and if the arms aren’t disabled by the crash, I’m so far away—’

‘Bucky, we won’t make it out to rescue—’

‘Nobody else is gonna die because of me!’ he said. She was silent. ‘Peggy.’

‘Yes, Bucky,’ she said, voice distinctly wet. Bucky couldn’t find any words, none to express the tearing in his chest at the thought of her alone. He wrenched the manual controls, the autopilot fighting him and every ounce of his strength maintaining course.

‘I hope you find the right partner to take you out dancing,’ he said. She laughed, and the wet in her voice was definitely tears. ‘Somebody who won’t step on your feet.’

‘I reckon you’d have danced with me just fine,’ she said, and he smiled as plane threatened to shake apart around him.

‘You’ll manage without me, doll,’ he said, forcing charm he didn’t feel. He adored her, fuck, how he did. Alarms began to sound. He was crashing. ‘I expect you to get yourself that date. Don’t forget.’

‘I won’t,’ she promised, and she wasn’t trying to hide the fact she was crying. He couldn’t bring himself to not. ‘Bucky.’

‘Peggy, I—’

^^^

He huddled in the corner of the room, sitting on the metal cot they kept in this holding cell. He was dressed in simple cotton pants and shirt, barefoot. His head had been shaved; they’d fused some sort of device into his skull, behind his ear, the size of a playing card. His hearing filtered thru it, electronic, exact and better than it had ever been. Sharp, dark scabs itched across his stubbled scalp, incisions healing from someone cutting into his skull and brain to take out his heart, except that wasn't quite right. He felt thin, like he’d been hungry for a long time. He tried to trace time. When had he last ate? What did he remember?

Panic pulled up no memories, but the vaguest wisps and dashes of impression. He was someone, someone real, and he was somewhere, somewhere he shouldn’t be, and he needed to go, to get out of here while he had enough of himself to do so.

The door clanged, and he looked up at it as it buzzed and whirled its way open. Two doctors entered the room, followed by three armed men, who lingered against the far wall, fingers on their triggers.

‘He’s coming,’ he told them, when the door banged shut behind the third guard. His voice was rusty with disuse but the promise rose out unbidden. ‘He’ll come.’

‘You’ve regained your ability to speak since this morning,’ the first doctor remarked, crossing to the cot. He couldn’t remember this morning. The doctor pulled a clipboard off the lip of the footboard, pursuing the file easily. ‘That’s a good sign.’ He watched the doctor, trying to remember if the doctor was someone he could remember. Had this doctor been here before? Did this doctor know him? He couldn’t remember the morning, just the shock of pain when he tried to recall it.

‘He’ll come for me,’ he repeated. He twisted in his cot, desperately trying to press closer to the wall as if it could keep him safe. ‘And this will—this will end.’

‘Who will come for you?’ the first doctor asked. The second doctor unlocked a cabinet, folding out a tabletop and revealing shelves of drugs and a set of tasers. The first doctor waited patiently. He shook his head. ‘Who will come, Pascha?’ the man needled. He blinked. Was he Pascha? The name didn’t feel right, but there wasn’t anything to fill the void but the harsh press of the void.

‘I—’ he tried, looking away. He frowned at the second doctor, preparing a drug cocktail in plain sight. ‘He’ll come. He came when—He came Before.’ He kept staring at the syringes, curling up tighter. He had only one arm, which was fewer than whatever had been before. He curled it close around his knees, protective.

‘Who came for you?’ the doctor prompted. ‘What came before this?’

‘I—I don’t know,’ he begged. He sounded distraught even to his own ears. The doctor made a few notes, letting him curl up and shake. ‘I don’t _know_.’

‘Pascha,’ the doctor called. He turned to him obediently. ‘What makes you think there was ever anything but this?’

‘There was,’ Pascha said firmly. ‘I _know_ there was. He’ll come.’ The doctor sighed, making more notes as he wandered over to the second doctor. The second doctor finished with his syringe, and moved towards the cot. Pascha let out a little sob, drawing in closer on himself.

‘Pascha,’ the doctor chided, and he only curled tighter. ‘Answer properly. What makes you think there was anything but this?’

‘I—’

‘Specifics or nothing,’ the doctor interrupted and it was a familiar rule. He wondered if there had been nothing. Maybe there was nothing. ‘No one is coming,’ the doctor said, switching to Russian, which he couldn’t remember learning, but he understood it nonetheless. ‘What makes you think there was anything but this?’ Pascha buried his head into his knees, his one arm wrapped tight around his legs.

‘Nothing,’ he sobbed.

^^^

Bucky woke up with a start. His mind was fuzzy and his limbs felt impossibly heavy, but he’d been bracing for impact and he’d been sure the impact would kill him. He stared at the white ceiling, his heart pounding and his lungs stuttering. He was cold.

There was a radio playing softly, and Bucky sat slowly, mindful of his aches.

He was alive.

How was that possible?

‘There's a pitch, it's a ball high outside,’ declared the radio, and Bucky stared at it. There’d never been a radio in any of Steve’s hospital rooms; they’d never been this nice. Bucky supposed the only army hospitals he’d seen were tents. Maybe the convalescence hospitals had radios. Jesus, how long had he been out, to have been picked up somewhere in the Arctic, brought here, laid to sleep?

‘So, the Dodgers tied four to four. At the count no doubt, one swing of his bat. This fella is capable of making it a brand new game again. Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbets field. Philly's have managed to tie it up four to four, but the Dodgers have three men on—’

Bucky frowned. That was familiar. He looked out the window, the breezy curtain. The city rustled below the window, but something about it seemed off. The light, he realised. The sunlight was artificial.

‘Pitch, it's a _strike_! He leans in, here's the pitch, swung on, it's a line drive. It gets past Grissom—Rizzo will score, Reiser heads to third. Durocher is going to wave him in.

They look to relay but they hold steady. Pete Reiser with an inside the park—’

The door eased open, and Bucky turned from the radio. God, everything hurt. He felt like he’d been hit by a damn truck, before the serum enhanced his healing. A woman—a nurse, she was clearly meant to be—entered, looking like no nurse Bucky had ever seen before.

‘Good morning,’ she said, then checked her watch. It was a Rolex Oyster, for women in service. Steve had gotten Peggy one for Hanukkah, just before he died. Stevie had spent a whole fifty dollars on it. This one didn’t look as nice as Peggy’s, like it wasn’t brand new, but had belonged to someone’s grandmother. It looked old, like Bucky’s father’s watch. ‘Or should I say, afternoon,’ she said. Bucky eyed her hair, and he had to admit, he eyed the lines of her lingerie beneath her blouse. No woman he knew would be caught dead with lines of her lingerie showing like that. That was a man’s tie. She didn’t even smell like a nurse; this room didn’t smell like a hospital. The window was open, but he couldn’t smell the city. Something was wrong. He looked at the artificial sunlight, then back at her. She was smiling kindly, falsely, and Bucky couldn’t help but scowl.

‘Where am I?’ he asked. She blinked at him, a bit thrown.

‘You're in a recovery room in New York City,’ she said. Bucky looked away, because that still wasn’t right.

‘The Dodgers take the lead, it's eight to four—Oh ho, _Dodgers_!’ announced the radio.

‘Where am I really?’ Bucky demanded, forcing himself to stand. He hid it well, as her clear trepidation showed, but he felt shaking and unsure on his feet. The dame shook her head slightly, a well-played gesture of sincerity.

‘I'm afraid I don't understand,’ she said.

‘The game,’ Bucky said firmly, and her eyes flicked to the radio. ‘It's from May, 1941. I was there. I know I’m not in New York; I know this hospital room is a set. Where am I?’

‘Captain Barnes—’ she said, taking a step back as he advanced on her. He regretted that, frightening her, but she was lying to him. He was supposed to be dead. He wasn’t supposed to be in some fake hospital room God only knew where when there was a war going on and he had a team to lead. The Nazis would lose control of HYDRA, with Schmidt dead or without, and HYDRA would take Europe. The Pacific Theatre was its own mess. There were too many enemies for him to be patient with someone lying to him. He had to find Steve’s _body_ , for Christ’s sake.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded, and she took another step back. He saw her hand clench, a panic button, and the door opened behind her. Two men entered, clearly ready to subdue him. He panicked, and when he struck them away, he overcompensated for the shake in his muscles. They flew thru what turned out to be a very thin, set wall, out onto some sort of soundstage like they’d film a talkie on.

‘Captain Barnes, wait!’ she called, and he’d already burst thru a set of heavy, metal French doors. They didn’t look right. Nothing looked right. He didn’t even know what it was, but it was different. He made it out into the hallway as alarms went off.

‘All agents, code 13—’ repeated her voice over the tannoy. The windows were high and glass, brushed metal and large tiled walls. The ceiling was impossibly high—what kind of holding facility was this? The hallway was filled with agents, apparently, in slimming black and slightly-odd suits. Bucky ran, fast as he could away.

He was on the ground floor—what kind of place would try to hold him against his will, on a bad set, within a ten second sprint of the _main entrance_?—

The road was foreign, bizarre, the car sleek and strange and bright yellow. He thought it was a cab insanely before he turned, sprinting away. Where the hell was he?

The streets were gridded, or at least appeared so. He didn’t know where he was—everything looked impossibly different, like no where he’d ever been, not North Africa, or Europe or Russia or home—so he just followed the grid to Times Square, hoping the route would be hard to trace in the absence of such an obvious endpoint, even if it wasn’t exactly the Tenderloin since the Crash—

—And he ran right into Times Square.

Bucky gasped, coming to a stop, not out of exertion but panic. It wasn’t Times Square, of course not, because of the lights and the cars and the fact _this was not New York._ This was not Manhattan. This was not home. But there was lit-up ads all the way up, as tall as the Times Building had been, and the zipper was fancier, but it was there. He spun, recognising marquees under the alien dressings. There was that statue of Father Duffy.

Black cars pulled up on either side of him, six in total, governmental or military in a way Bucky recognised easily. Agents in suits held back the perimeters of gossiping bystanders, gossiping New Yorkers. Bucky recognised the men in black uniforms unlike anything he’d ever seen as a strike team. Whoever these people were, they were ready to take him down.

‘At ease, soldier,’ a man called, and Bucky turned to him.

It was a coloured man, with an eye patch, decked in black, and looking like a threat even with his easy movements towards Bucky. He didn’t smile, somber, but he didn’t glower. He didn’t see Bucky as a threat, not really. Someone he might have to subdue, sure, but someone he saw as on his team.

‘Look, I'm sorry about that little show back there,’ he said. ‘But we thought it best to break it to you slowly.’ Bucky breathed slowly, trying to ease his panic before he answered.

‘Break what?’ he asked, steadier than he felt. He was cold.

‘You've been asleep, Cap,’ the man admitted. ‘For almost seventy years.’ Bucky nodded, and his gaze drifted. The panic faded and he felt shaky and numb. He supposed it was shock. Seventy years was a long time. Peggy might be dead. The Commandos might be gone. They’d be old if they were still alive, on the way to the next thing, old enough to barely remember him. Seventy years was a long time.

‘You gonna be okay?’ the coloured man called. Bucky nodded, scanning Times Square. New York. Hell, it wasn’t even the same century. It wasn’t even the same _millennium_. He remembered reading dime novels and pulps about the future. The next millennium was never a place he thought he’d be. It seemed like another world then, and it seemed like another world now.  

‘Yeah,’ he replied, forcing himself to sound steady, and failing just a bit. ‘Yeah, just... I’d made plans.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> A lovely reader, taylor/1Riot, pointed out a historical inaccuracy; I described Steve fighting in trenches, which apparently means I did not do my research, as WWII had significantly less trench warfare than WWI. I've 'redacted' the scene, as it were, but if anyone for some reason wants that section they could send me a message or comment with their contact info and I'll get it to them. I hope that the new scene is more accurate. Thanks for reading, everyone, and I hope to finish part two very soon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i know that i am nothing new (there's so much more than me and you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4729307) by [kayteedancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayteedancer/pseuds/kayteedancer)




End file.
